


Recipe for Disaster

by khasael



Series: Recipe for Disaster [1]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Food Prep, Alternate Universe - Food Service, Alternate Universe - School, Cooking, Food, M/M, alternate universe - culinary school
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-11
Updated: 2012-02-11
Packaged: 2017-10-31 00:19:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 53,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/337817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/khasael/pseuds/khasael
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur's known since he was young that he has a knack for cooking and baking, and beginning culinary school only makes him more certain. But no matter how good he is, it seems Eames is better – which does not endear him to Arthur in the slightest. Eames, however, is quite determined to get Arthur to open up and stop being so uptight and prickly by any means necessary. While each hones his skill in the culinary arts (and Arthur desperately tries to convince Ariadne that the desired structural integrity of her cakes violates basic laws of physics), they increasingly find themselves drawn together, inside the classroom and out. Given such close quarters in the kitchen, and the amount of sensory stimulation involved with preparing all manner of food, it starts to become difficult for Arthur to retain his customary level of distance and detachment. And, as Arthur will find, when it comes to unsatisfied appetites, hunger is often the best sauce of all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Recipe for Disaster

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Round 2 of the Inception Big Bang on LiveJournal. Massive amounts of thanks to MajaLi for the tons of prodding, ass-kicking, and general assistance, to Arineat for a bit of the same, and to Groolover for the beta work, despite all the technical terms.

There was something about standing in a kitchen, dressed in chef's whites, apron, dark pants, and non-slip shoes, that made Arthur feel as if he was finally somewhere along the path he'd been meant to follow. Being surrounded by nearly two dozen other similarly-attired people only reinforced the feeling. 

But even though these people might believe they were also destined for culinary greatness, Arthur knew that he was one of the few that would actually make something of themselves within the field.The majority of the poor bastards would be stuck working in an Applebee's or some other similar culinary hellhole of the gastronomically mediocre. He wondered if any of them realized that yet.

"You, you, you, and you," the man at the head of the kitchen said, pointing to a handful of students in turn. "Over to that station. Turkey stock today, soup tomorrow. Recipe's on the table. You two," he said, gesturing to Arthur and another student, "work on preparing the mirepoix. The other two, preparing the carcass for browning. Remove as much of the meat as you can and set it aside for tomorrow's lesson. Go.”

Arthur made his way over to the table on the far end of the kitchen with a quick, “Yes, chef,” not even waiting for his other group members to follow. A week of nothing but lecture and tours of the kitchens to become acquainted with the kitchen equipment had only made him more eager to get to this point. 

By the time the other three members of his group had gathered around the rectangular stainless steel table, Arthur had already scanned the recipe. Nothing exciting, really. Mirepoix, herbs, the turkey carcasses, a bit of tomato paste...what you’d expect for your basic, everyday stock and soup. Still, it was working with food, and a chance to show that he had a better idea of what he was doing than a lot of his fellow students would. Some people got into the culinary arts on a whim, after seeing love stories set in the kitchens of fancy restaurants, or cute little family films about rodents who could cook. Arthur, however, had wanted this for a long time.

“So, how’s everyone?” the guy across the table asked after a moment of silence during which Arthur had already arranged his vegetables at his left side and the other two students had donned gloves, looking less than thrilled with the prospect of stripping the flesh from the turkey carcass. “New acquaintances, all?”

Arthur didn’t even bother to look up. He wasn’t here to chat. “Yeah,” was his only real contribution. The guy already working to rip apart the turkey gave a similarly non-committal response. Arthur could appreciate that.

The lone girl in the group made more of an effort. “I’m Ariadne,” she said, pulling one of the turkeys closer to her, twisting and pulling one of the legs until it came loose with a wet crunching sound that was the bone coming free of the socket. 

“Well, if that’s not an unusual name,” the guy said in a voice that was probably supposed to be charming, aided by his British accent. “But quite lovely. Fits you, I’d say. And you two are?”

“Jefferson,” the other person replied. “Nice to meet you.”

“Excellent,” the Brit said, still sounding ridiculously jovial, as if he’d been personally appointed social coordinator for the group. “And you are?”

_Trying to dice this celery_ , Arthur wanted to say. Instead, he bent his head a bit more and slid his knife down another stalk, working to give himself strips that would make a good quarter-inch dice and tossing the unusable bits into the stock bucket in the center of the table . “Arthur.”

“Arthur. I’m Eames. Nice to meet you all.” He pulled a handful of the celery stalks Arthur had already divested of their leaves and ends onto his cutting board, and Arthur gritted his teeth. He couldn’t prep one of the bunches that hadn’t been touched yet? “Jefferson! I noticed your bag in the lecture the other day. Are you really a fan of the Red Devils?”

“The who?”

Eames sighed. “I’ll take that as a no. Pity. I’ve seen no less than four Man United logos since the term began, but not one person has been able to name a player other than David Beckham, and he hasn’t played for them since 2003. Wayne Rooney? Ryan Giggs? Rio Ferdinand? Ring any bells?”

“No, sorry, man. Bag was a gift from my wife, anyway.”

“Oh, well, I suppose that explains it,” the Brit said, sounding only slightly less cheerful. “What about you, Arthur? Football fan? Or soccer, I suppose I should say?”

“No.” He’d played briefly until the age of eight, but had given it up once his parents had started relying upon his babysitter to be there for his games and fill them in later. He hadn’t been very good at it, anyway. 

“Ariadne?”

“I’ve never seen a soccer game,” the girl – who had to be the youngest of them all by at least five years – said apologetically. “I’m not really big on sports.”

“Ah, well, disappointed in you all I may be, but that doesn’t mean we can’t all get along just fine,” Eames said brightly. 

Arthur thought that might be the end of things, but it appeared Eames had no shortage of conversation topics at hand. He ignored most of them completely, preferring to focus on the job they were supposed to be doing. He’d finished with two bunches of celery and was three onions into the bucket between them when he couldn’t really take the idle chatter anymore. While it was nice to get some practice in on his knife skills, he’d be damned if he did all of the dicing on his own. “Eames, listen,” he finally sighed, looking up at the guy across the table. “Why don’t you stop for a second and...”

“And what, Arthur?” Eames asked, eyebrows arched expressively. He had a face for that, Arthur noticed briefly – one that displayed amusement rather well. “What should I stop?” His right hand, wrapped easily around the handle of his knife while his thumb and index finger rested on either side of the blade, stilled. 

Arthur blinked. Eames had somehow managed to get through the rest of the celery, nearly all the carrots, and had just started on his second onion. He’d chopped nearly half again what Arthur had, even though he’d been non-stop chattering since they’d hit the table. And what was more, each and every diced bit of vegetable in his container seemed to be as close to a quarter-inch dice as you could get without a ruler.

It was then that Arthur decided he didn’t like Eames.

x X x

  


It was somewhere around the point when Chef Cobb – who did not like jokes or questions about his feelings on the cobb salad, as it happened – assigned the bloke with slicked-back hair, nice chin, and sharp cheekbones that made him look more serious than he should be to Eames’s group when Eames decided that culinary school might fit him perfectly well.

It wasn’t as if he had been dreading culinary school in the first place, really. He’d wandered into it, much the same as he’d wandered most places in his life – because it seemed like the next place to try, some new thing to explore and learn from. And after a decade or so of work in more kitchens than he could easily recall, Eames wasn’t worried about the challenge. He expected to work, yes. But he expected things to just sort of ...work out. They always had, at least to his way of thinking. Others might take a look at his life from a more objective viewpoint and disagree, but what did that matter to Eames? It was his life, wasn’t it? No other opinion on the matter was necessary. 

It was a bit disappointing to learn that none of his groupmates knew a thing about football, but not really unexpected. Eames had been in America far too long to be surprised by the stunning lack of knowledge the average American had of the sport. What was more disappointing, however, was how unsuccessful each and every attempt to get Arthur to engage in conversation had been.

When Arthur had interrupted Eames’s conversation with Ariadne on her interest in building custom cakes, only to trail off and never actually say what he’d interrupted for, Eames got a glimpse of the hard line of Arthur’s shoulders, his thinned lips, and his narrowed eyes and made a decision.

Gay, straight, or somewhere in between, Eames was going to impress him in any damned way he could. _Someone_ needed to wipe that uptight look off Arthur’s face. And Eames was fairly certain he was just the man for the job.

After a moment of actual silence, in which all that could be heard was the chopping of vegetables and the soft squelching sounds of cooled, cooked turkey being pulled off the carcass, Eames tossed the final handful of his onion into the container between him and Arthur, scooped up between hand and knife blade, and came around the other side of the table. “You know, I can show you a better way to dice that onion,” Eames offered, flashing a wide smile.

“This is the way Cobb showed us,” was Arthur’s curt response. Everything about the man was curt. Eames wouldn’t be surprised if that was his bloody middle name.

“Yes, I know, but there’s a quicker way–” Eames said, starting to move around to the spot immediately at Arthur’s side and reaching for the other half of the onion sitting on the chopping board. “Look, you just–”

“I _said_ no thank you,” Arthur snapped.

“You didn’t, actually,” Eames pointed out, but he stepped back towards his side of the table. “If you’re ever curious, feel free to ask. I’d be happy to show you.”

Ariadne cleared her throat. “Would you show _me_?”

Eames beamed at her. Nice girl, really. A bit quiet and timid, but she seemed clever enough. Whether or not she was as timid with a knife as she appeared to be about most other things would be seen in due course. “Absolutely, love. Here.” He snagged the other half of the onion before Arthur could become too protective of it, and laid it on his chopping board. “See, this way, you don’t have to cut towards your fingers. You let the natural rings of the onion do some of your work for you.” He made a series of slices perpendicular to the grain of the onion, then turned them ninety degrees. “Like this.”

Eames sneaked a quick glance up at Arthur as he made another series of slices. He couldn’t quite tell from this angle whether the other man was watching at all. Oh well. He finished showing the technique to Ariadne, flamboyantly scooping the diced bits of onion between knife and hand and dumping them into the bucket. “Just like that.”

“Why doesn’t Cobb teach us that way?” Jefferson asked, and Eames shrugged. He hadn’t realised he’d had everyone’s attention _but_ Arthur’s. 

“Damned if I know,” Eames replied. You’d think that a chef instructor would teach the easiest methods available, but then again, what did he know?

“Where’d you learn to do that?” Ariadne asked, stripping off her gloves and stepping over to the nearby hand sink. 

“Some Greek cafe in London.” Eames grinned. He’d learned a lot of things in a lot of places, and it pleased him to pass some – but not all – of them on. The onion trick, he could afford to give up. Other techniques, however, were his alone.

Unless, of course, the person asking was five foot ten or eleven, slim-built, brunet, with dark brown eyes and a serious disposition. Then, perhaps, Eames could be persuaded to give up some secrets.

“Ooh, you’ve worked in food service before?” Ariadne asked, wide-eyed. “I could never get a second interview anywhere. Everywhere I looked wanted you to have experience first, but no one would _give_ you that first shot at experience. How’d you manage that?”

That was a long story, really, and one Eames didn’t really feel up to sharing today. He looked at Arthur for a long moment, watching the way he wrung out the rag over the sanitizer bucket and scrubbed his working surface in a manner that was somehow both brusque and loving, and shrugged. “Fell into it, really.” 

Across the table, Arthur snorted. “Fell into it,” he muttered, apparently unaware (or just uncaring) that he was speaking aloud. 

Grabbing the rag back from the bucket where Arthur had tossed it and wiping down his own work station, Eames made a solemn vow to himself. If it took all term, all year, or even the entirety of his formal culinary education, he was going to get that bloke to drop the barriers, give him a smile, and say something friendly. He’d never met anyone so resistant to pleasantries or getting along. Somewhere along the way, he would impress Arthur enough to get a positive reaction out of him.

And if it never happened, Eames was going to die trying.

x X x

Though Arthur had never seen the Brit before the lab in Chef Cobb’s class the day before, he suddenly appeared to be everywhere.

He had been there, chatting with their instructor for Contemporary Cuisine the day after they'd first gotten to do kitchen work. He'd been standing nearby in Introduction to Wines later that same day, grinning at Arthur as if they shared some sort of secret, or were friends of some sort. So when Arthur walked into the lecture portion of Chef Cobb's Culinary Fundamentals and didn't see Eames anywhere, he shrugged, chided himself for being paranoid about whatever he was being paranoid about, and sat in a desk a third of the way back from the front of the lecture hall, lining up his pen and binder atop the flip top of his desk chair.

"My, my," a very British voice murmured in Arthur's ear moments after he'd gotten situated. "Aren't _we_ organized? Tell me, Arthur, are you this fastidious in everything you do?"

Arthur froze at the voice, then sighed deeply. He did not, however, acknowledge the man behind him. That would be giving in (giving in to _what_ , however, he didn't know. But he was pretty sure he didn't want to do it).

Eames didn’t seem deterred in the slightest by Arthur’s lack of response. Instead, he leaned forward, violating Arthur’s bubble of personal space. “You know,” he said, breath tickling just slightly at Arthur’s right ear, “an organized mind is a complex mind. The more organized you are, the more you can fit in it. Do you agree?”

Arthur would have liked to respond back with something snappy, perhaps regarding Eames’s own lack of organization (not that Arthur’d noticed one way or the other, really, since Chef Cobb had had their stations set up before their arrival the other day). Unfortunately, just before he could come up with something clever and harsh enough to regain his semblance of personal space, he’d caught a whiff of something warm and woody and sweet that made nearly all higher brain function cease. Arthur had been cooking long enough in an amateur capacity that he had a better-than-fair sense of scent and taste components. He could pinpoint faint amounts of cinnamon in his favorite chocolate icing from the bakery across town, or celery seed in the rub his college roommate used on his pork ribs, or even the top note of lavender in the tea his old babysitter liked to drink. But this... 

This was warm nights in the tropics, jeans rolled up to mid-calf as you walked along the shore at night, drinks and desserts in the dark booth of an exclusive restaurant, and something lower and darker besides. He wanted to say there was citrus and vanilla, but honestly, he couldn’t quite identify it. All he really knew was that, in other circumstances, Arthur might be very willing to grab whoever wore this fragrance by the collar and drag him close, wanting little more than to infuse himself with the scent and the feeling it provided.

“Arthur? I know you can hear me. I suppose, if you really are so intent on watching Cobb down there, diagramming the different styles of knives, I’ll leave you to it.” Eames chuckled softly, voice disturbingly rich in timbre and breathy when he spoke again. “Forgive me for interrupting when you’re learning.”

“I don’t care about kinds of knives,” Arthur finally managed, recovering just the slightest bit of brain function when Eames pulled back, taking his voice and his cologne with him. “Besides, he hasn’t even started the lecture yet.”

“True enough.” And just like that, Eames was close again, and Arthur wanted to kick himself for opening the door like that. He _didn’t like this guy_ , sultry voice and charming – oh God, did he really just admit it was charming? – accent and unbelievable cologne not withstanding. “So I suppose that means I can bother you just a little bit more? Tell me, have you had any ideas for the report Cobb wants at midterm yet? I was thinking something on Escoffier, you know, since we do seem to owe so much of the method to him. What do you think?”

In truth, Arthur thought very little, but it had nothing to do with Eames’s chosen essay topic. It was much more a product of his voice, and feeling his breath on Arthur’s neck, and that scent that was warm-woody-sweet-spicy going straight to Arthur’s brain and shutting it down. If he ever found a suitable boyfriend, Arthur thought vaguely, he was going to have to track down that cologne and give it as a gift, with the warning that if it was used, there would be very little chance they would remain clothed while not out and about in public. 

Or even _in_ public, depending on how concealed an area was with alcoves or shrubbery.

“I, uh...” He knew how to use words, really, he did. Normally, he’d have a good, solid, and possibly disparaging remark at ready, likely regarding how one couldn’t pick a more obvious subject for their essay, and how Cobb was probably going to have to read through a hundred such essays during midterm week. “Yeah. That.”

It was at that very moment, as Eames was once again laughing softly in Arthur’s ear and Arthur was still struggling for coherent thought – or even the ability to name all the damn components of the cologne, though he was almost certain both vanilla and lime might be in the profile somewhere – that Ariadne chose to drop her rather heavy-looking backpack onto the floor at Arthur’s feet and flop into the chair next to his. “Arthur, right? Is it okay to sit here? I forgot my glasses, and I lost a contact back in Asian Cuisine two hours ago, so I can’t sit in the back where I’m used to.”

“What?” Arthur said, suddenly snapping out of it. Oh thank God. This girl probably didn’t know it, but she had just saved him from...well, not from Eames, exactly, but from himself at the very least. No, on second thought, she had definitely saved him from Eames, who was now leaning back in his own seat and fiddling with his pen, tapping out a light rhythm that only he could appreciate. “Yeah, go ahead. Sit. It’s Ariadne, right?”

The girl beamed at him. “No one ever remembers it the first time. Yeah. I’m in your Cakes and Confections class too, I think. With Chef Yusuf?”

Arthur had vague recollections of seeing a pale, petite girl with dark hair and big eyes lingering towards the back of the bakery classroom. “Oh, yeah, I think you’re right.”

He was saved any further awkward small talk (which, admittedly, was a hell of a lot less awkward than whatever he’d been having with Eames) when Chef Cobb turned around and dove straight into the lecture, not even bothering to tell everyone to shut up first. For the next two hours, there was nothing but notes on the five mother sauces and some of their best-known variations. As he gathered up his things and bid a goodbye to Ariadne, all he could think was “bechamel, espagnole, veloute, hollandaise, tomato-and-don’t-ever-let-me-catch-you-saying-vinaigrette-in-this-context-I-don’t-care-what-any-other-chef-tells-you”, repeating rapidly until the words all ran together and Arthur was quite sure that whatever he had for lunch or dinner that day would _not_ be including a sauce of any kind. He’d have white rice with steamed broccoli, or even cold cereal, if it came to that.

In fact, so invested was he in the whirling list of mother sauces that he almost didn’t notice when Eames squeezed by him in the aisle, a heady cloud of that scent wafting up as he moved past, and tossed Arthur a little wave and accompanying grin.

_Almost_ didn’t notice.

x X x

Some people, when met with a challenge that seemed to be insurmountable, simply gave up any attempt to overcome it. Some took a step back and reevaluated whether or not the result was worth the expenditure. And still others considered whether or not what they were trying to accomplish was even what they wanted in the first place. Eames, having done the third point and a bit of the second on the little information he had, had chosen the remaining option.

He had simply decided to work harder at it and approach the challenge from whatever angle necessary.

And Arthur certainly _was_ a challenge. Eames had no idea what the hell had made the other man so prickly and closed-off, but he was certain there was a way around it. It was likely Arthur had friends of _some_ sort, which meant that there was actually a chance he opened up and willingly interacted with other people. What Eames needed to find, then, was where the weak spot in that barrier might be, where the opening in that wall might be hidden. 

Because it had to be there. Eames wouldn’t accept the alternative.

He had tried general small talk, but all efforts in that vein had failed, although he had met a handful of other students who seemed perfectly nice people. In fact, the young girl Eames had shown the onion trick – Ariel or Adrienne or something like that – was quite nice. If Eames had had a younger brother, he might even nudge him in that direction. Sweet girl. Rather inquisitive disposition, too. 

After general small talk, he’d tried slightly-less-small talk. And while Arthur hadn’t quite been so terse when Eames had brought up the topic of their essays for Cobb’s course, he certainly hadn’t been _responsive_ to anything Eames had said. A similar attempt at discussing Arthur’s opinion on hollandaise and other emulsions hadn’t got him any further. He’d got not a single glimmer of insight into the man in the two weeks he’d been trying to coax a civil response from him. 

A lesser man would give up, go out for a pint, and think about snogging the bloke sitting next to him at the bar, who _did_ appear to enjoy the nuances of back-and-forth conversation. Tempting though it was, Eames had no intention of doing so.

Besides, said bloke had said he favored Manchester _City_ , of all teams.

Eames considered a new plan of attack as he unloaded his car that evening, arms laden with bags of groceries. He’d managed to get used to calling a courgette a zucchini, but he didn’t think he’d ever be used to American chocolate, which accounted for the twenty dollars in mint and milk chocolate varieties of Aero Bar he’d managed to find this evening. He wasn’t much of one for stress eating nothing but junk food, but he’d never deny his ever-present sweet tooth. What he needed to do, he reasoned, unwrapping the first bar of chocolate even before putting the milk in the fridge, was to learn something about Arthur and use that to begin a conversation. _How_ he was going to do that, however, was still a bit of a mystery. He hadn’t seen Arthur converse with a single soul in any of their courses. 

Well, wait. There was always Adelaide, wasn’t there? Granted, he’d never overheard or even seen the two of them have a full, lengthy conversation, but she seemed the most likely person to actually know something about Arthur. He shrugged to himself as he tossed the empty chocolate wrapper into the bin. Well, as a last resort, perhaps. Maybe he just needed to be more clever in his tactics. There had to be something he and Arthur had in common. Eventually, he’d find it. It might take a while, but that was fine by Eames. He had plenty of time. It wasn’t as if he was going anywhere for a while.

x X x

There were few things, Arthur believed, that were as pointless as cakes that looked delectable, but were virtually inedible. Or in this particular case, _actually_ inedible.

Beside him, Ariadne was looking similarly troubled. “Is this...Is this going to be our final exam?” she asked timidly, hand in the air. “A wedding cake?”

Chef Yusuf laughed. “Not for this course. This is merely an example I was showing to one of the Advanced Cake Design students. You’ll be doing cakes, obviously, but nothing quite so elaborate this term. First I’ll show you the basics of decorating – borders and flowers and combing, in addition to the actual cake and filling recipes. Your final practical exam will, however, be a cake of your own design.”

Ariadne still looked wary. “Are we going to have to use fondant?”

“We can discuss that later,” Chef Yusuf said in a way that almost certainly meant “yes”. Ariadne turned to Arthur, rolled her eyes, and mimed sticking her finger down her throat. 

Arthur smirked. He couldn’t really blame her. It might look nice, but fondant wasn’t exactly the best-tasting option. At least good cake wasn’t going to waste – Arthur could see a very thin gap between the fondant and cake board that revealed the styrofoam cake forms inside. “Practically the same stuff outside as in,” he muttered to her when the chef’s back was turned. She giggled behind her hand, then faked a cough to cover it when Chef Yusuf looked over in their direction.

An hour and a half later, Arthur had streaks of green icing on the inside of his right wrist, just below the spot where his vinyl gloves ended. Ariadne had red food coloring along the heel of her palm and soaking the outside of her left little finger, so that it now looked like her hand was a bloody mess underneath her own glove. They had a large bowl of uncolored vanilla buttercream icing at the far corner of their shared table, four smaller stainless steel bowls of colored icing pushed to the edge of their work area, plastic icing couplers and a variety of stainless steel tips haphazardly tossed into a small plastic box, and a sheet tray of nearly three dozen icing roses on small squares of parchment between them.

They also had a solid dusting of confectioner’s sugar everywhere, but Arthur had somehow managed to put that out of his mind, concentrating instead on making a goddamned cone of buttercream that _stayed upright_ and _did not fucking lean_ when he went to pipe the first circle of petals around the top.

“Um, Arthur?”

Arthur squinted even harder, turning the flower nail in his left hand slowly – so very slowly – while trying to use enough pressure on the piping bag in his right hand to get an actual full petal to emerge instead of some half-assed thin strip of icing with no curve or thick end. “Better be good, Ariadne.”

“You, um...” she trailed off, and Arthur would bet money she was biting her lower lip. They hadn’t known each other long, but he’d been working with her long enough in the bakery (and even a bit in the kitchen, when it came to Chef Cobb’s class) to know which troubled expression went with that tone of voice. “You sort of just leaned into that puddle of rose-pink food coloring I spilled.”

“What?” He looked down, managing to nudge the first row of petals with the tip of the pastry bag and completely ruining his rose in the process. His apron was now nearly hot-pink, and, in addition to the smear of color that covered the material, there was an even darker spot just above his waist. Arthur realized with dismay that he could feel damp fabric up against his stomach. Giving up any possibility at salvaging the flower he’d been working on – because, really, it was a slim fucking possibility anyway – he put the flower nail and bag of icing on the table and stepped back. “Aw, shit.” He untied his apron, saw the dark stain on his chef’s whites, undid the last button, and pulled that aside. Even his undershirt was pink. Which meant, likely, so was his skin. “Really?”

Ariadne looked torn between laughing and hiding back in the pantry. “I’m sorry,” she said warily, as if afraid he was going to shout at her. “I thought you knew it was there. I just went to get new rags–” she held up a folded towel, already soaked in fresh, uncolored sanitizer solution, and clutched a dry one in her other hand "–and before I could say anything, you’d leaned into it.”

Arthur sighed heavily. “No, it’s fine.” It wasn’t exactly ideal, but it was hardly as if she’d burned him or cut him or anything. “Remind me to buy a _black_ chef’s coat for days we’re in the bakery, though.” He looked her up and down, noticing the green icing smeared across her apron, transferred from the lip of one of the small bowls to the spot just below her chest. He had a vague recollection of watching her cradle the bowl as she gave up on mixing the color into the small amount of icing with a bowl scraper, in favor of just using a plastic spoon. “Actually, why they don’t tell us that in the first place is beyond me.”

“I’m not sure why they do a lot of things,” Ariadne said, shooing Arthur aside to clean up what remained of the puddle. “Like why we can’t use a meringue buttercream for decorating instead of a basic buttercream. My hands are so warm, I had to keep adding powdered sugar to make it thicker and keep it from melting. Why would he make us use this stuff?”

“I do it,” Chef Yusuf suddenly said from a place right behind them both, causing Ariadne to yelp, “because it’s the cheapest option. Consider it a bonus that I’ve let you do colors for this project to help you see the details – when I first learned, we were only allowed to use white icing. Also, I don’t feel like turning all thirty of you loose on the stove for Italian or Swiss buttercream just yet. We’ll have plenty of time for icing and filling recipes. Learn the basics of making things look attractive first, Ariadne, and then we’ll move on to making them taste good.” There was a slight commotion from another area of the room, stainless steel bowls clattering to the floor and people bickering loudly, and Yusuf sighed. “Just keep working. You have another twenty minutes before it’s time to clean up.”

Once he had gone, Arthur shrugged and handed over their only remaining bag of red icing. “Your turn. You need more practice than I do, anyway.”

“Gee, thanks,” Ariadne said with a flair of sarcasm. “At least my first four roses didn’t look like artichokes.”

“Yeah, but my tenth was almost perfect, and you couldn’t get your bottom level of petals to line up with the base until at least your fifteenth.”

“You’re such a pain in my ass,” she muttered, squinting as she piped a cone of icing onto the flower nail. “There,” she said after a moment, twirling the completed flower right in front of his nose. “Take that. Screw ‘almost’ perfect. That could have come straight from the garden of some witch’s gingerbread cottage.”

“If you say so.”

Ariadne stuck out her tongue. “You’re going to go home tonight and practice until two in the morning, just so you can come back on Friday and show me how much better you are than I am, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, right,” Arthur scoffed, nudging her out of the way of the bench scraper he wanted with a grin. “Like I need practice to prove that.”

Besides, he couldn’t. He didn’t own piping tips.

x X x

No matter how long his shower this evening was going to be, Eames was still fairly certain that by the time he crawled into bed, he would still smell of cheese.

After a week of listening to Chef Mallorie Cobb (who warmly insisted upon being called “Chef Mal”, unlike her husband’s rather harsher mandate he only be addressed as “Chef Cobb”) lecture on the characteristics of cheeses, the process behind their making, and the regional variations of such, the word “cheese” had started to lose any meaning whatsoever. That was, of course, until they actually were _presented_ with an assortment of cheeses – dozens, in fact – and told that for the next two hours, their concern was to taste each one, take notes, and consider foods to pair them with. There was no shortage of options, as evidenced by the plates of crackers, nuts, sliced fruits, jams, and other assorted complements, carefully arranged on the work stations around the class kitchen.

Eames took a moment to thank the good lord he wasn’t lactose intolerant, and another to wonder how Chef Lefevre, one of the first to allow Eames into his kitchen and also a man determined to break him of his refusal to eat anything other than Cheddar, was fairing, and then he made his way to the front of the class with the other students to gather a hand-held wooden tray that resembled a very thin chopping board.

Instead of fighting through the knot of students at the first table of cheeses, Eames headed for the back of the room where the other tables held assortments that were just as inviting. And he wasn’t alone. As Eames reached for a tiny plastic sample cup of pomegranate molasses, Arthur’s arm nearly knocked into him as he stabbed a few small cubes of Gruyere onto a plastic toothpick. 

“Watch out, would you?” Arthur said testily, and Eames tsked inside his own head. Always so wound up, this one.

“Pardon me, Arthur,” he replied easily instead. “I will try to jump out of your way next time.” He gave a little wink and moved around the other side of the table, making certain not to leave to much room as he scooted between Arthur and the other table behind them.

"Whatever," Arthur muttered, popping a small chunk of Emmental into his mouth and closing his eyes. Eames watched with fascination as Arthur's jaw worked slightly and he seemed to savor the taste. After a moment, he opened his eyes, set down his tray, and made a few little notes on the stapled packet of half-sized sheets of paper Chef Mal had handed out.

Unable to help himself, Eames leaned over and glanced at Arthur's paper. In small, neat handwriting were the words "nutty" and "grassy", followed by a small arrow and "pepper crackers" and "sweet/tangy fruit?" Really? Well, he couldn't really fault Arthur's notes as inaccurate. But pepper crackers and some sort of sweet or tangy fruit? Really?

"Where's your sense of imagination?" Eames asked, unable to help the smirk that crept across his face. "Isn't the point of the exercise to explore creative pairings?

"The point of this exercise," Arthur said, voice hard, "is to familiarize ourselves with the different cheeses and keep an open mind regarding which other flavors would complement the cheeses on offer."

For just a moment, Eames wondered how far the stick might be up Arthur's arse, and just how long it had been wedged there. "Well, someone's been reading the syllabus," he said lightly, reaching for the platter of blue cheeses at the next table and taking a small sampling of each. Unlike Arthur, who was busy arranging his cheese samples in a very orderly fashion and then _actually diagramming their positions on his tray in the margins of his papers_ , Eames had very little need for organization of that sort. "She can't really expect us to stick with the complementary items on each table, can she?" he asked after a moment of frustrated inventory over the table's contents.

Arthur gave a little grunt, not bothering to look up from his note-making. "And what exactly would you do, otherwise?"

Eames looked around and spotted something promising at a far table. He wove his way through the other students, who were now starting to scatter away from the tables at the very front of the room, wooden trays already nearly full of items, and picked up a small paper cup from the far corner table in the classroom. After a second's thought, he picked up a second cup and headed back to his tray. "This," he said, dropping a few blue cheese crumbles into the cup, tilting his head back, and closing his eyes as both flavors hit his palate.

"What on earth are you doing to that chocolate?"

Arthur sounded absolutely horrified, which was sort of adorable, in a ridiculous way. Eames took a minute to let the tastes mingle on his tongue a bit longer before chewing and swallowing. After another moment of appreciating the interaction between the two wildly different flavors, he opened his eyes and raised his eyebrows. Picking up another chunk of dark chocolate along with another bit of cheese, he stuffed both items into Arthur's slightly agape mouth. "This."

Arthur looked torn between punching Eames in the face, shouting that he'd been accosted, and just simply going into shock. But then he chewed, and his eyes, which had been narrowed so far that Eames rather thought he was going to give himself a tension headache, widened comically.

"Good, isn't it?"

Swallowing his small mouthful, Arthur glared at him. "That still doesn't give you the right to shove something into my mouth. My God, are your hands even _clean_? What makes you–"

"So it _was_ good," Eames interrupted before Arthur could really get going. "The dark chocolate tempers the saltiness and the pungent sting, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, fine, I guess," Arthur snapped. But still, he bent his head and jotted something in his notes. Eames considered that a victory, though not a large one. He wandered over to another table, this one full of soft-ripened cheeses, and helped himself to a small serving of each, though it appeared many of their classmates had not limited themselves when it came to the Brie. Eames watched him take small bits of the accompaniments, taste everything with a thoughtful look on his face, eyes often closed, and jot notes. It was...well, it was sort of charming, how seriously Arthur took everything. He appeared to have _some_ experience with cheeses, given the pairings Eames watched him make, but there was very little sense of adventure to his choices.

"What's your cheese background?" Eames asked over a picked-over plate of Asiago, after taking pains to appear to aimlessly wander around the other tables. "You have to have some background knowledge – you don't look nearly as afraid as some of these other students."

Arthur looked up at him, swallowing whatever he'd just sampled. "My parents had a lot of parties when I was growing up."

"Ah, invited you in to show off to their friends, I imagine. Sort of a 'look at our precious little boy and let him tell you about his studies' thing?"

"Hardly," Arthur said curtly. "I wasn't allowed to wander around the adults. But the caterers didn't seem to mind me hanging around the kitchen, so long as I stayed out of the way. I think they fed me to keep me quiet."

"Not that you wouldn't have been anyway," Eames said with a little grin.

"Not that I wouldn't have been anyway," Arthur agreed with a little huff that _might_ have been a laugh, covered up. And without any sort of excuse or transition, he walked away, leaving Eames there to stare after him and wonder just how on earth he was supposed to get Arthur to open up more than giving one single fact about his childhood.

Hell, it was a start.

x X x

Though he had essentially abandoned his original career in order to attend culinary school and pursue that path, Arthur's study habits hadn't changed much in the years between his college days and his schooling now. Ten o'clock on a Saturday evening still found him at home, lounging on his couch, television on for background noise as he re-read the recent chapters of his culinary texts and reviewed his own notes. Unfortunately, it was a bit hard to focus when his phone kept chiming at him. Finally giving up on ignoring it, he picked it up and saw four new text messages, all from Ariadne.

The first was a simple _you're home, aren't you?_ Not much later, she'd sent _omg, are you watching this??_ An hour ago, there had been _wonder wen we get 2 do coolstuf like that_. And just now, the enlightening missive on his screen read _YOUSHOUSDN'T BE ABLE TO TO TAHT WIH CAEK ARTHUR. ISNRT RITE. CAEK SHOLDU BECAE KNOT STRYOPHOM._

Arthur sighed and put down his highlighter in order to respond, because heaven knew she'd pester him until he did. _Ariadne, are you DRUNK TEXTING me while watching Ace of Cakes again?_ There was a slight pause, and then his phone chimed again, bearing only a _...mabey._

He was halfway through the chapter on sauces when his phone rang. Looking at the caller ID, Arthur sighed, accepted the call, and braced himself. "Hello?"

"Seriously, what kinda kitchen has a _band saw_ in it?" was the indignant, slightly slurred greeting. "That belongs in someone's grandpa's workshop, or someone's garage. Not a bakery. Charge hundreds of dollars for cakes, and it's half styrofoam and wood. And it's all fondant. Can't anyone just use _buttercream_ for God's sakes?"

"Ariadne," Arthur said, pinching the bridge of his nose but unable to help smiling just a bit. "Turn. Off. Food. Network."

"But I love this show. I want my cakes to look like that. I just want them to be, you know, actual _cake_."

"I've seen some of your cake design sketches," Arthur said with a laugh. "You violate the rules of physics. You can't have them that shape without having _some_ sort of support structure. You cannot twist the world to your dimensions. Keep dreaming, Ariadne."

"Buzz kill," she muttered, and Arthur heard the faint sound of glass clinking against glass. "What're you doing, anyway? Studying again?"

"Reviewing."

"You are such a nerd. At least tell me you have porn or something interesting on while you do it."

"Porn?" Arthur gaped at his phone. Had he been eating or drinking, he might have choked. He was finding there were some social and personal boundaries Ariadne just didn't see as off-limits. "You know what, I don't think I want to know about your study habits. But to satisfy your curiosity, I've got Alton Brown on, okay?"

"DVR again? I swear to God, Arthur, you fangirl him more than my mother does."

"I do _not_ 'fangirl' anything, you drunkard."

Ariadne laughed at him. "If you say so."

"I don't! I simply appreciate his conversational yet informative style and the recipes and techniques he presents."

"Sounds like someone's trying to rationalize their crush," she sing-songed. 

Arthur sighed deeply. "Just shut up, okay?"

"What? Not like there's anything wrong with it. It's not as bad as you having a crush on Paula Deen."

"That woman is older than my mother. Also, she's kind of frightening." Not to mention that he wasn't particularly interested in women.

"Does make good use of butter and bacon, though."

Arthur paused. "I'll allow that."

Ariadne giggled again. "I win. Oh, they're doing a _Firefly_ cake. Did you watch _Firefly_ , Arthur?"

"I'm hanging up now," he said deliberately. He had a very strong feeling that if he didn't end this conversation now, he'd end up watching right along with her, listening to her alternately gush over designs and rage over the use of non-cake materials. It had happened before, after all.

"Never let me have any fun," she sighed. "Fine. Go back to being a nerd and crushing on Alton. Some day, I'm going to drag you over here for wine and cake shows. Mark my words."

"Marked. Good night, Ariadne."

"Night, Arthur. Give Alton a kiss for me, would you?"

Arthur hung up, worried that if he rolled his eyes any harder, they'd get stuck in the back of his head. But the call from Ariadne had killed his motivation for studying. Perhaps that wasn't the worst thing, anyway. He knew the material. He'd been over it backwards and forwards and could instruct someone how to make roux in his sleep. With a sigh, he closed his book and binder, picked up the notebook that always sat on his coffee table, and turned to a fresh page in the back, replaying the current episode of Alton Brown from the beginning.

He _didn't_ have a crush on Alton Brown.

At least, not much of one.

An hour and a half later, Arthur had three new recipes in his notebook, two empty bottles of beer on the floor, a half bottle sitting on a coaster on the table, and a craving for goat cheese, red pepper, and shrimp pizza that couldn't be satisfied, because there were no places around that delivered that sort of thing, and Arthur didn't feel like taking his increasingly temperamental car across Los Angeles just for pizza. He settled for a grilled cheese with buffalo mozzarella and another episode of Alton Brown, where he could at least watch things being _made_ with assorted peppers.

But as much as Arthur appreciated Alton's culinary venturesomeness, Arthur had to draw the line somewhere. There were inspired flavor combinations, and then there was exploration for exploration's sake, like...like..blue cheese and dark chocolate. "Mango pepper sorbet?" Arthur muttered at his television, taking a sip of his third beer. "Ugh. Why, Alton? That is so something Eames would do." 

And now he was thinking about Eames. Great. He was going to need another beer.

He couldn't specify _exactly_ why the other man irritated him so much, but he truly did get under Arthur's skin. It might have been the way he always seemed to be around, wherever Arthur turned. It might be the way he seemed so casual about everything, or the way he grinned whenever Arthur responded to him in any way. It might be the fact that, every once in a while, he smelled good enough that Arthur forgot to be irritated with him. It might be the easy way he moved in a kitchen, calling out warnings and even the occasional command, as if it were second nature. 

And then again, it might just be that he might actually be better at everything than Arthur was. Only he wasn't. Not really.

Yeah. It was definitely time for a fourth beer. And maybe turning off the DVR in favor of the _Ace of Cakes_ marathon, to take a page out of Ariadne's book.

x X x

Though he knew the lectures were a necessary part of culinary school, Eames found them exceptionally boring. Other than the history of the brigade kitchen system and the history of some of the base recipes they used in many dishes they were attempting to make this term, Eames wasn't sure he was getting much out of them at all. It seemed everything interesting and worth knowing happened in the actual kitchen itself, much as it had been for the last several years of his life.

"What exactly are you doodling?" a voice whispered next to him, much closer than he expected.

Eames jumped, quickly moving to cover his notebook with his text. "Don't _do_ that," he hissed. "What the hell, Ariadne, didn't anyone ever tell you it wasn't nice to spy on someone's private affairs?"

Ariadne shrugged. "Oh, _ai gamisou_ ," she murmured, giving him a cheeky grin and nudging his hand away.

Eames blinked. Well, two could play at that game. " _Gamo tin mana sou._ " He yanked his notebook back and smirked. He would not let some little twenty-year-old best him, whether it be at insults in a foreign language, or wrestling for a look at his mindless doodling.

"You leave my mother out of this," Ariadne said, giving one final tug at the notebook. She was stronger than she looked, because somehow, whether because she had better leverage or because Eames was trying not to get caught at this little tug-of-war at the very back of the classroom, she ended up with the now slightly-mangled spiral notebook in her hands. "How do you even know what I said? I mean, I know this class is Mediterranean Cuisine, but come on."

Eames watched with a mixture of embarrassment and slight dismay as Ariadne turned the notebook this way and that, in order to get a full look at what was scrawled in the margins. "I thought I told you, I worked in a Greek cafe back in London. I learned to say 'fuck you' before I learned how to make proper _tirokeftedes_. How does a little thing like you know those words?"

Ariadne arched one eyebrow. "With a name like mine, you don't think there might be some Greek in the background? Come on, where's your knowledge of Greek mythology? Minotaur? Sword and ball of thread?" She rolled her eyes when he just stared at her. "Nothing, huh? Fine. Let's move on to the more important question, shall we? Why, exactly, is it you've been doodling Arthur's name in the margins of your notebook like some lovesick schoolgirl?"

For the life of him, as quickly as he could normally think on his feet to get out of an unpleasant situation, Eames had nothing. "Who says it's _our_ Arthur?" he finally muttered, making one last attempt to get the notebook back.

" _Our_ Arthur? You're claiming him, now? You totally have a thing for him, don't you? I _knew_ it."

"Oh, fine," Eames said as soon as Chef Fischer resumed his lecture, having finally looked up to see what the small disruption had been. "So either shut up about it, or help."

Ariadne's pleased smirk widened. "Oh, Eames," she whispered out of the side of her mouth, writing down whatever Fischer had just listed on the blackboard. "'Help' isn't a strong enough word for what I am going to do."

For the first time in his life, Eames found he was afraid of a girl.

x X x

"You," Ariadne said, plopping down at a table in the cafeteria beside him, "look like you're studying too hard."

Arthur looked up from his text book for Introduction to Wines and raised his eyebrows at her. "No such thing." He scooted over slightly to allow her a place to set her food and backpack and she handed over his favorite kind of cookie from the small bakeshop area – chocolate chip, macadamia nut, and coconut. He was going to have to remember to copy down that recipe from the classroom sometime soon.

"Yes, there is. And you're doing it. Listen, I know midterms are next week and the week after. Why don't you skip the studying in the cafeteria and making flashcards or whatever in front of Alton Brown or _Hell's Kitchen_ episodes, and come study with me. There's a nice, quiet coffee shop near my place, and there're couches and tables and a fireplace on the top floor, and no one ever really goes up that high. There's even wi-fi."

Arthur hesitated. He'd done quite a lot of paper-writing in college at assorted coffee shops, and had even done some research for his last job while camped in a corner of the Starbucks not far from his own apartment. There was a peculiar little draw to having ready access to caffeine, and feeling like he _had_ to get things done, since he was paying to be out. And he felt Ariadne might be the kind of girl who would actually study instead of just chattering at him as _he_ studied.

"Come on. I'll even buy your first couple drinks. I know the baristas there. Extra shots of espresso, no charge."

"All right, fine."

"Great!" Ariadne beamed at him and opened her Chinese chicken salad, thoroughly drenching it in dressing. "Tomorrow night's no good, since there's live music there on Fridays and we'd never hear ourselves think. How's your Saturday morning?"

Arthur took a bite of his cookie and shrugged. "Wide open."

"Okay, how's nine-thirty sound? I know it's kind of early, but it gives us all day. I'll have all my textbooks, but bring yours if you want. It's Solid Grounds coffee shop. I'll text you the address later, if you need it."

Wrinkling his nose as she dug into her lunch, Arthur shook his head. "I can find it."

It only took about two and a half seconds on the internet to find the directions to the coffee shop Ariadne had mentioned, and this early on a Saturday, even parking wasn't bad. He walked into the place, appreciative that the lighting wasn't bad, and there wasn't some annoyingly hipster or "world" music selection playing too loudly. 

"Ariadne's friend?" the girl bussing the table near the door asked as the door closed behind him.

"Yeah," he replied, slightly surprised. Then again, Ariadne _had_ said she knew the baristas. "Is she here?"

"Third floor. Right up there," she said, pointing.

"Thanks." 

Arthur took the winding staircase up to the third floor, a place with a cozy, attic-like feel and an abundance of overstuffed chairs. The only person around was Ariadne, camped out in a corner with a neat pile of text books and a massive three-ring binder in front of her. "Good morning."

Arthur slung his backpack into a nearby empty chair and nodded. "Morning. Coffee before we begin? I can get the first round."

"Actually," she began, and then trailed off, eyes going past his shoulder. Arthur followed her gaze and stopped, mid-turn.

"Already ahead of you," Eames said brightly. "Four-shot Americano, sugar-free vanilla for the lady, three-shot breve for you, Arthur." He handed Arthur a light blue ceramic mug after setting a drink in front of Ariadne and carefully placing the tray with his own beverage on the table.

"Tea?" Ariadne asked with a small snort. "Oh, Eames. Be more British, I dare you."

Arthur just continued to stare. "I thought this was going to be a study session," he finally said, looking right at Ariadne. "The two of us." 

"It _is_ a study session," Ariadne countered, blowing on her drink and moving her stack of stuff so that Eames could sit. "Did I not mention Eames would be joining us?"

"No," Arthur said, sitting down and accidentally-but-not-really kicking her underneath the table. "I don't think you did." He glared downward at his drink – which was what he would have ordered himself – and tried to figure out how Eames would have known this bit of information. Right. Ariadne. He'd gotten coffee with her a couple of times before. She must have told him.

"Well, no matter. We're all here for the same purpose. Besides, you two can study for Intro to Wines while I study for Asian Cuisine, since I couldn't get into that one."

"Because they don't let children drink in this country," Eames said, pulling out his own notebook and putting it nearer to Arthur than he appreciated.

"Hey, I'm twenty-one," she insisted, smacking Eames's arm. "I just wasn't yet on the first day of classes. I really want to take it next term, though. That field trip the class takes to the vineyard up north during spring break is supposed to be really fun."

"Saito knows the bloke who runs the vineyard, doesn't he?" Eames asked, taking a sip of his tea.

Arthur snorted. "He _bought_ the vineyard. Haven't you ever noticed how most of the red wines we use in Cobb's class are from the same place?"

Ariadne's eyes went wide. "Holy shit, you're right. If he's that loaded, what's he doing teaching?"

"Whole family's in some sort of food- or drink-related profession, from what I remember."

"And just how do you know _that_?" Eames asked, giving Arthur a look that was half curiosity, half amusement.

"I did my research. I'm good at that. What, did you just google culinary schools and pick the top result?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Eames snorted. 

"I...um...might have done something sort of like that," Ariadne admitted. 

Arthur's glare moved focus from Eames to Ariadne. "Oh, for the love of... Never mind, I'll lecture you some other time. Let's just get to studying, all right?" He opened his Fundamentals of Culinary Arts book to the chapter on cooking methods, though he had probably been over moist versus dry methods enough to write an essay on it while half-asleep.

He had been flipping through pages of his book for forty minutes or so when a glance upwards afforded him a view of Eames violating his pen, the end of it perched between his lips and occasionally being moved by the tip of his tongue. As Arthur watched, Eames absently removed it to take a sip of his tea, twirling it in between his fingers. When the mug was set again on the table, back went the pen.

Somewhere, way back in the part of his brain that wasn't trying desperately to remember that he really didn't like this guy, Arthur was also trying to tell himself that, under no circumstances, should he ever be jealous of a ballpoint pen.

Instead, he cleared his throat, feeling oddly flushed. "Do either of you have those recipes Cobb handed out during the section on soups and stews?"

Both of them looked up, and Arthur could swear Ariadne gave him a look before shaking her head. "Somewhere in here," Eames murmured around the end of his pen, digging in his backpack. "Ah, here we are. Anything else you need, Arthur?" 

"No, thanks." Arthur took the notes and ducked his head again. He didn't look up until Ariadne asked Eames to quiz her on regional differences in recipes for their Mediterranean Cuisine class, and that was only because they were talking so loudly Arthur couldn't remember how in the hell to make a good, clear consommé. "If you're talking about an emulsion, I think I'm with Ariadne on the egg yolks," he finally said, exasperated.

Both Ariadne and Eames looked up, Ariadne smirking a bit. "Thank you, Arthur."

"Well, whereas egg yolks are _often_ involved in emulsions, Arthur, in this case, not all _skordalia_ uses it as an emulsifier. Some recipes call for it, some don't. Others call for varying amounts of stale bread, or vinegar, or potatoes. So, in this case, Ariadne is wrong. It's not an essential ingredient in the recipe regardless of variation."

"Prove it," Ariadne said, sticking out her tongue. "Because I don't have that in my notes."

"All right, if you insist." Eames pulled the text book away from Ariadne and flipped halfway through. "See, right there," he said, pointing to a section bereft of highlighting. "My God, woman, what sort of Greek are you?"

"Only a quarter," Ariadne muttered, sticking her tongue out again. "All right, you win. Now help me with this section on vegetarian main dishes. We never had those at home, except during Great Lent, and then only when my grandmother was alive, 'cause she'd have beaten my father if he ate meat during a fast."

Eames gave her a pleading look. "Tell me you've at least had _spanakorizo_ or _arakas me aginares_ before."

Ariadne shrugged. "I don't like peas, and I'm sort of ambivalent on the whole concept of spinach."

Eames looked appalled, and Arthur barely managed to keep in a laugh before ducking his head over the recipes Eames had handed him. "Ariadne, before this term is over, you are going to come over to my place and I am going to help you cook a proper meal so that you may stop disgracing your ancestors."

Things were calm for quite a while longer, Ariadne and Eames tossing Greek words back and forth for a while (they seemed like the names of dishes at first, though, given the way Ariadne started to blush and giggle, Arthur thought they might be using occasional colorful phrases just because they could). Eventually, they moved on to Italian dishes, then Spanish and what might have been Portuguese. About the time Arthur was debating getting up to stretch and maybe get another coffee, Ariadne closed her textbook and stood. "All right, maybe you two can study all day without food, but I'm hungry. Anyone else? I'll buy." Arthur looked up from his notebook and Ariadne laughed. "I'll take it from that look that you'd be up for lunch, Arthur. Eames?"

"Wouldn't turn down good food, love. What kind of culinary student would I be?"

"Fine. You two stay here. I'll be back soon. Arthur, for God's sake, take a break from the studying." She walked away, shaking her head and muttering to herself.

"You know, Arthur, it might be wise to give yourself a bit of a rest," Eames said, leaning back in his chair and lacing his fingers together behind his head. "Put the notes down. Have a chat that doesn't involve culinary theory."

"I might," Arthur muttered, "except I'm driving myself crazy trying to remember the different cuts of beef and what they look like. Why the fuck don't we have a diagram in our textbook?"

Eames raised his eyebrows. "You can't identify a cut of meat by sight?"

Arthur glared. "Not all of us are intimate with so many types of meat, Eames. And I can identify some of them. I'd just be more confident on the exam if I could study a diagram of where each cut came from."

"Oh, well, _that_ ," Eames said with a wide grin, sitting up in his chair and reaching for a pen, "I can help you with." Without asking permission, he pulled Arthur's notebook in front of himself and started sketching what looked like a rudimentary cow. A few moments later, there was another oddly shaped outline which Arthur assumed was meant to be a pig, though from this angle, it could have been a badly-drawn version of New York state, or even North Carolina. "See, this here? This is what you Americans call 'chuck'. From which, we get the seven-bone pot roast, chuck pot roast, shoulder pot roast, and a host of others." He looked up from the paper, where he was sketching actual cuts of beef, marbling and all. "Here, come closer for a proper look."

Grudgingly, Arthur moved his chair closer, so that they were now essentially shoulder-to-shoulder. From this angle, Eames's sketches did actually look like the things they were supposed to represent. Eames shifted, angling his body towards Arthur, and for the first time in the few hours they'd been sitting across from each other, Arthur caught of whiff of cologne – the same one that had rendered him stupid in Cobb's lecture weeks ago. "Oh, you bastard," he murmured, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath.

"I'm sorry, what was that?" Eames asked, now marking another section of the cow's outline as shank. "Did you say something?"

"No." Arthur let himself have a moment to enjoy the scents of...whatever it was that Eames smelled like. It was a little bit like bay rum, something definitely masculine and warm, but with a number of undernotes he still couldn't place. "Shank. That's also brisket, isn't it?"

"Yes, for you Americans, but brisket's generally this part of the cut–" Eames circled the part closer to the belly than the leg, "–and shank's more this part. If you were standing here in front of me, I'd say brisket's... _here_." He turned in a bit more and let his fingers trace a light pattern over Arthur's chest, just enough contact for his fingertips to brush the material, but not pressing enough that he was actually touching _Arthur_. 

"Oh. I see." Arthur swallowed and nodded, wishing his body wasn't letting the feelings associated with Eames's cologne override his sense of distaste for the other man. 

"Of course you do," Eames said easily, turning back to his drawing. "Then, here, we have plate, and then this little area of flank. Skirt steak like this, with the marbling, and flank steak like this, much leaner, see?"

Arthur didn't see. It wasn't that Eames wasn't presenting the information in a clear manner, however. It was more that his brain _refused to work_ while filled with the incredibly faint scent of this cologne. There were some people who wore enough perfume or cologne or, God forbid, body spray, that you could smell them across the room, or even after they'd _left_ the room. This was subtle, the scent warmed by Eames's body heat and only present enough to be noticed when close enough to hold a whispered conversation.

"Um, guys?"

Arthur's eyes – which he hadn't been aware were still closed – flew open at the sound of Ariadne's voice. He scooted back in his chair so quickly the legs screeched across the wooden floor. "Oh, hey, you're back."

Ariadne just raised one eyebrow. "Yeah. I didn't know how you felt about tuna fish or egg salad, so I just got us three club sandwiches, sodas, and chips. Or crisps, or whatever the hell you call them, Eames. Barbecue, sour cream and onion, and regular. You two can fight over flavors. I'll eat anything."

"Yeah, I've seen you eat vending machine sandwiches," Arthur said, scrambling slightly for his previous spot at the table. "I don't doubt that."

With a laugh, Ariadne set the tray she was carrying in the center of the table, atop Arthur's stack of books. As they ate, essentially inhaling everything on the tray, Eames got Ariadne to talk about how she'd decided culinary school was the path for her, the matter of googling for schools to apply at aside. After fifteen minutes and one impassioned speech about how too many specialty bakeries were sacrificing taste for presentation, especially where fondant was concerned, they had everything finished and Arthur had taken their tray back downstairs, where there were now at least a dozen customers enjoying lunch and drinks. When he came back, Ariadne shut up mid-sentence and only grinned at him, which Arthur found somewhat suspicious.

"What were you just talking about?"

"What? Nothing," Ariadne said quickly, giving Eames a sideways glance. "Eames was just telling me a bit about that Greek cafe where he used to work. And maybe correcting my use of a particular phrase."

"Shameful how little this one knows of her own culture," Eames said lazily, leaning back in his chair. "Some day, I'm going to teach her better."

"Well, what other cultures are you familiar with? You said something about working a number of places. All Greek?"

"No. There was that Greek cafe for nearly a year. Japanese place for six months. Eight months at the Israeli restaurant. Six weeks at some little French place. All back in England, mind. Some places like that since I moved here, plus a Brazilian one that taught me to truly appreciate roast meats. I just absorbed whatever they shared. Sort of building on a talent I discovered when I was young."

"And what talent's that?" Arthur asked skeptically.

Eames sat up straight, adjusted his collar and sleeves, and cleared his throat. "You know very well vinaigrette isn't one of the five mother sauces," he said intently, eyes squinty and face pinched. "I don't care which celebrity chef said it on Food Network last week, but in _my_ class, that is never an acceptable answer."

"Holy shit," Ariadne breathed. "That is the best impression of Cobb I have ever seen or heard. Can you do anyone else?"

This time, Eames widened his eyes and loosened his collar, straightening his shoulders and managing to look both more professional and slightly defeated. "While it's true my father's on the board of directors here at Pacifica Culinary Institute, I am _certainly_ qualified for this teaching position, even if I can't seem to pronounce 'octapodi me makaronaki koftó' to save my life."

Ariadne nearly choked on her soda. Arthur had to agree with her that Eames's imitation of Cobb had been impressive, all traces of his British accent gone and even their instructor's facial expression perfectly achieved, but he had no idea who this second impression was. She, however, did. "Fischer? Oh my God, Eames, you missed your calling. You should be an actor or something."

Eames took a little seated bow. "Thank you, thank you. Just a hobby, love, but one I have quite a lot of fun with. Now, back to the studying, perhaps? I still have a few things to sketch out for Arthur, here."

"Ah, yes, the thing I interrupted. By all means, have at it." There was something in her tone that set Arthur's little internal alarm bell off, but nothing he could pinpoint. And when he gave her a sharp look, she only gave him the most exaggerated innocent look she could have managed. With narrowed eyes, he bent down over the notebook and paid attention as Eames sketched more cuts of meat and murmured examples and names in Arthur's ear.

There was a giggle that caught his attention sometime later, and when Arthur looked up, in a slight cologne-induced daze, he was met by Ariadne's smirk. What the hell was she smirking about? She still couldn't remember how to make veloute or espagnole sauce, which were basic principles Cobb wanted them to commit to memory.

A moment later, still looking warily at Ariadne, he was hit by the realization that Eames's hand was placed lightly on his back as the other man continued to sketch, now finishing up the last cuts of pork. How long had it been there? 

...And why didn't he mind that much?

Arthur sat up, posture now rigid instead of slouching. "Sorry," he muttered at Eames's quizzical look. "Back's bothering me." He faked a stretch in order to increase the distance between them. Maybe he _was_ too stressed about midterms. It couldn't be that he enjoyed the contact, could it? The cologne, yes, that he definitely enjoyed. But this was Eames. _Eames_. The guy who was consistently showing him up in class, and effortlessly, at that. Cologne or not, stress or not, Arthur would make himself focus on his course load. This simply wasn't the time to let himself consider frivolous things.

x X x

Though he had been a bit skeptical about Ariadne's study session plan, Eames did have to admit that the six and a half hours they spent at the coffee shop _were_ more productive at getting Arthur to stop being so antagonistic than any other times Eames had tried to talk to him. They still hadn't exactly had a long heart-to-heart, with Arthur dropping whatever impenetrable guard he usually had up and sharing old stories, or personal information at all, really – even details like his culinary aspirations, but it was certainly an improvement.

That was was one thing Eames found quite odd, really; every other culinary arts student he knew was only too happy to tell those around them – whether the information was requested or not – exactly why they were studying the culinary arts, and what they expected to do with the degree once they were done. Eames had worked in food service before, in many locations and many tiers of restaurants. He knew that a degree, no matter where it was from, did not mean one would immediately get the position of head chef in a highly-rated restaurant, and that most of them were probably looking at prep cook or _commis_ positions straight out of school, the luckier ones getting positions as a _cuisinier_ or maybe even _chef de partie_. He had a very realistic view of his post-education employment opportunities, and thus steadfastly worked to improve his hands-on skills and prove to his instructors that he was a cut above the rest. Grades were one thing, but the thing that was going to land him a job was the skill he could demonstrate during a _stage_.

Eames walked into Culinary Fundamentals on Monday morning feeling quite ready for both their last day working with stocks and sauces, and the written exam that would take place the next afternoon. After all, he knew what he was doing in a kitchen, and thanks to Arthur's studious – if a bit uptight – nature, he had a solid handle on theory. He was in a good mood as he prepared the _mise en place_ , measuring out the liquid ingredients and giving his herbs a rough chop before setting them aside. In fact, as he was temping his cream to make sure it was hot but not scalded, he was even whistling.

"Ah, Arthur," he greeted the other man, moving over at the range to allow Arthur to work with his own pot. "Feeling confident as we begin the week? Lots of successful revision this weekend. I was thinking–"

"Not now," Arthur muttered, staring into his pot and whisking whatever was in there as he added in a few chunks of roux. "Trying to concentrate."

Eames blinked at the abrupt tone and then shrugged. Fine. This was midterm week, and it wasn't as if Arthur's stiff personality hadn't already been noted. He'd just thought, given the time they'd spent together on Saturday, that he might get _some_ sort of friendly acknowledgment. "Sorry." He made an effort to clamp down in frivolous chit-chat as they worked. It was easy and soothing, in a way, to lose himself in the noises of the kitchen – stainless steel bowls clanking, water running as things defrosted under cold water, someone flattening chicken breasts on the far side of the room, and calls of "corner!" or "sharp!" or "hot, behind you!" flying around at intervals. These were sounds he knew, an environment that felt at home, no matter which country he was in or what sort of cuisine was being prepared.

Truth be told, class was considerably less enjoyable when there was no one to chat with, even given the comfortable rhythm. But Arthur had brushed off his other two attempts to say anything other than "here" when Eames had handed over his thermometer, Ariadne was on the far end of the kitchen, mincing ginger, and the few other folks Eames generally made small talk with were stationed far enough away to make conversation impossible. So when Cobb finally made his way over to their stove, Eames was actually glad to be evaluated.

Reaching into Arthur's pot with a plastic tasting spoon and coating the back with the white, creamy liquid inside, Cobb squinted and examined Arthur's handiwork. "Started with the bechemel, I see. Hm. Good consistency of this Mornay. Nice color." He tasted it, eyes closed, and beside Eames, Arthur twitched. "Smooth and not too salty or bland. Well done."

Arthur finally seemed to lose some of that strung-up quality, though his facial expression did not soften. He only nodded. "Thank you, chef."

"And now yours," Cobb said, reaching for another spoon and helping himself to Eames's sauce as Arthur gathered his utensils and the rest of his dishes into the largest bowl on the table behind them. As Eames waited, really just wanting to finish so he could have a conversation with Arthur about something, _anything_ , really, Cobb's eyes widened. "What did you change from the recipe?"

For the first time, Eames felt a small stirring of anxiety. "Not much. I didn't use quite as much parsley, since there wasn't much in the walk-in. But I added a bit of Gruyere and some Hungarian paprika. And maybe a dash of lemon." He swallowed. "I didn't think it would be a problem, I'm sorry."

"Normally, I'd dock points for altering recipes without the instruction to improvise, but this shows good instinct, and a palate for more complex flavors. Very nice additions – impressive for an introductory course. But in the future, don't make adjustments unless I've given instructions to do so."

"Yes, chef."

Cobb left, moving towards the next range beyond theirs, and Eames turned to Arthur, readying a container to store his sauce in. His grin faltered a little when he saw Arthur's thin-lipped expression, equal parts bitter and incredulous. "Good job on the Mornay," Eames said, settling for what he felt was safe territory.

Arthur scoffed and pulled his pot off the range rather more aggressively than was necessary, given the hot contents inside. "Yeah, well, 'good' just doesn't compare with impressive, I guess," he said with a huff. And with a glare that could turn hot broth to ice, Arthur moved past him, taking his pot of sauce to another area of the kitchen, leaving his dishes until the moment Eames had his back turned.

So much for having good things come to him as a reward for his skill.

x X x

It wasn't enough that Arthur wasn't able to fall asleep at night anymore – now he couldn't even sleep until his alarm went off in the morning at six.

As Arthur laid in bed and listened to the sound of his upstairs neighbor's bed creaking directly above his head, followed shortly by moans that evolved into actual, legitimate shouts, confirming 728-C's penchant for dirty talk, he realized, without even opening his eyes, that his shitty week wasn't over yet.

The wave of pain and nausea that rolled over him as he tried to sit up verified that situation quite clearly. Waking up with a migraine was bad enough. But the knowledge that it had been so long since his last one that his medication had expired three years before and been tossed out nearly as long ago certainly did not improve the morning.

Neither did the alarm going off right next to his head, seconds after 728-C hit her apparent climax.

"Fuck me," Arthur groaned, burying his head underneath his pillow, a blessedly cool and dark place for the moment. He grit his teeth and tried to think. He could do this. Just run through the facts, the things he knew.

It was Monday. Six o'clock in the morning. He didn't have his first class of the day until eleven, which gave him...five...yeah, five hours until he had to be standing in the kitchen at school, dressed in his uniform. In that five-hour period, he only had to manage showering, dressing, and getting to campus. 

And finding something for the headache. That was a given, though not as easy as he'd like. No prescription on hand, different insurance and doctor since he'd last had a valid prescription. No refills anyway, from what he could recall. So, okay, over-the-counter drugs. Did he have any of those? Only one way to tell, wasn't there? "Okay," he muttered into the mattress, taking a few long, deep breaths. "Bathroom. Medicine cabinet and shower. Not that hard." 

He was made a liar the second he stood up. He felt off-kilter, as if there was a two-second delay between what was happening and when his body alerted him to said happenings. At least, thank God, it wasn't full-light out yet. And the automatic night-light that was installed in all bathrooms in this apartment complex meant he didn't need the LED lights in his bathroom on to shower. Small blessings. He just had to actually get there. Why the fuck was every little thing such a momentous step when you had a migraine?

A fumbling look through the medicine cabinet only returned a bottle of Advil, which, as another small blessing, was almost full. Better than nothing. He took two with a handful of water from the sink and rested his forehead against the wall. One step down. Now the shower. Sometimes sticking his head under water as hot as he could stand actually helped.

Only, as Arthur remembered ninety very long, cold, wet seconds later, their building wouldn't have hot water until later this afternoon. Well, cold packs over his eyes helped, too, so a cold shower – a very _brief_ cold shower, anyway, because he didn't exactly feel like suffering frostbite or something like that, especially in more sensitive areas – might also do him some good.

Eight minutes later, he was clean enough to suit the situation and shivering so hard his teeth chattered. But the pain in his head, while still pounding rhythmically away, didn't seem _quite_ so intolerable. Dressing took a while, mostly because he couldn't lean forward to put on socks or shoes without wanting to throw up, but he managed. "Three steps down." And still four hours left.

Of course, there was the slight complication of not having his car.

Grabbing his pair of sunglasses from his drawer (and the Advil from the bathroom), Arthur put them on, grabbed his bag, and headed for the bus stop. It was still early enough that the sun, low enough on the horizon as it was, didn't feel like his mortal enemy. Again, small blessings. 

The bus, however, was another issue. He was crowded in his seat, pressed against the window, as a woman who was easily double his weight and wearing enough perfume for a whole nursing home's worth of grandmothers sat next to him instead of next to the twelve-year-old kid across the aisle, who looked like he'd have no problem shanking someone. Fucking Los Angeles.

"You said it, honey," the woman murmured, patting his knee. "Back home in my part of Georgia, people know how to be people."

Arthur tried to give her a smile from behind his sunglasses, slightly startled he'd apparently said that aloud. Between the perfume and the movement of the bus and the general sounds of the engine and everyone's blaring iPods and cell phone conversations, he was feeling significantly less okay than when he'd left his apartment. So when the conductor announced that Wilshire and La Brea would be the next stop, Arthur pulled desperately on the cord and tried to squeeze past his seatmate without hitting her in the face with his backpack.

Caffeine. That was what he needed. Caffeine and another dose of pain killers. There was a reason so many migraine medications included the stuff. And even through the pastry chef at Daily Grind had been out sick for a week and the fill-in couldn't bake worth a damn, there was still highly-caffeinated coffee to be had. Sweet, glorious caffeine.

Arthur had been in line for about three minutes, two people from the front, when the nausea he'd been trying to ignore let him know resistance was futile. He excused himself from the line, nearly knocking over a young girl on crutches on his way to the men's room, hand clamped firmly over his mouth, but he made it into one of the empty stalls in time.

"I hate," Arthur groaned when he thought he was finally done, "the universe." 

He took his time cleaning himself up, taking advantage of the empty restroom to wash his face and rinse his mouth without getting odd looks, and decided he was okay. Sunglasses once again in place, he got back in line. 

"Hello, sir! What can I get you this fine morn – " the cashier began before looking up and recognizing him. "Oh, Arthur, are you all right? You don't look good at _all_."

Apparently, tipping the staff and having the occasional chat meant they remembered you here, since Arthur was fairly sure he'd only ever spoken to this girl a handful of times. "I'll be better after some caffeine," he said, thumb against his right temple and fingers rubbing the center of his forehead. "How many shots of espresso can you fit in a tall cup?"

The cashier – Annie? Amy? Yeah, Amy, same as his cousin – looked at him for a moment. "Any heart problems?"

"No."

"Migraine headache?"

"Yeah."

"I get those, too. Tell you what. I'll charge you for a triple, but I'll have Bryce hook you up with six."

Arthur's jaw dropped a little as he handed over a twenty. "Amy? I think I just might love you."

"You'd be surprised how often we hear that here," she said cheerfully, handing back his change. Arthur promptly dropped all of it into the tip jar. God bless sympathetic baristas. "Order'll be up within two minutes. Hope your headache goes away."

The espresso – bitter and definitely not the stuff he regularly got here, but caffeine all the same – was gone before the next bus arrived, another three Advil with it. He might end up with gastric bleeding, but right now, that seemed the lesser of two evils. By the time he finally made it to campus and into Cobb's class, he was fairly sure the smart move would have been to stay in bed, in the dark, opening his eyes only enough to text Ariadne to ask her to fill him in on the classes they shared. His other classes...well, if he had to, he supposed he could ask Ariadne to ask Eames for his notes. Or...actually ask, himself, if it came down to it.

"Where the hell have you been?" Ariadne hissed into his ear, punching him in the bicep. "I thought we were going to – fuck, Arthur, you look like hell. Are you hungover or something? Because you have this look kinda like you might puke."

"I'm not hungover," Arthur told her, squinting against the fluorescents. "I have a damned migraine." 

"Oh, shit, I'm sorry. Wouldn't have hit you if I knew. Why are you here? There's devotion to school, and then there's unreasonable obsession, and I have to let you know, this might put you over the line."

"Look, I haven't missed a class all semester. I like this stuff," he said as they moved to the nearest empty work station. He caught a whiff of the salmon that someone walked by with and swallowed hard as his stomach lurched. "Except that the bright lights and the smell of food right now makes me want to throw up. Sort of par for the course this last week, really."

Ariadne patted him lightly on the back as she pulled their supply of fish in front of her and slid the bowl of lemons and the zester in front of him. "Here, trade. Then tell me what else is wrong. I'm good at problem solving."

Arthur weighed his desire to forget everything against the likelihood that she'd keep pestering until he told her everything and sighed. "Fine." He laid it all out as he zested and then juiced, thankful the smell of citrus didn't seem to be in the same vomit-inducing category that almost all other food currently occupied: his neighbor's new boyfriend, which had enlightened him to the fact that she was a screamer and had the sex drive of a fifteen-year-old boy; his car finally dying on him three miles from home after the engine had made some God-awful noise; Jackson, the pastry chef at The Daily Grind, being out sick and the fill-in being unable to make good croissant dough so that nothing tasted right; the stove in his apartment dying and taking three days to replace; the hot water at his place being out since yesterday afternoon.

When he was finally done, Ariadne whistled, apparently forgetting that high-pitched noises weren't enjoyable for people with migraines. "Oh, Arthur. You've had the worst luck this week. But...well...at least your car's supposed to be fixed by this weekend?"

"Yeah. It won't be cheap, but as soon as the parts come in, it shouldn't take long to fix. I just hate having to go there. I get hit on by the mechanics."

"How is being hit on by a hot, muscular guy a bad thing?"

Arthur shuddered. "It's two of them. One of them is old enough to be my dad, missing teeth, wheezes from probably decades of smoking, and is creepy in a might-be-a-serial-killer way." He took a deep breath. "And the other one is a woman with over a dozen tattoos, who could probably break me in half – in fact, I think she said she'd like to show me she could."

Ariadne laughed and tried to cover it by coughing into her shoulder, face pressed into the material of her chef's coat. "Okay, you need to find a garage that has hotter mechanics, first of all. Second..." She sighed. "Okay, I don't have any answers. Just ride out the week, I guess. Something'll happen that turns it around."

Arthur shrugged. "If you insist. I've already decided I'm just going to suck it up and push through it. I am not letting this week – and especially this migraine – get the better of me."

With a deep sigh, Ariadne shook her head and set aside her filleted fish until the other person at their table – Dana, if Arthur recalled correctly – came back to let them know the poaching liquid was ready. "Men. Either the biggest babies in the world when they're sick, or stubborn as hell and insistent they're fine. You're the kind of guy who would try to shrug off a bullet wound, aren't you?"

Arthur glared at her, the expression helped by his constant squinting against the lights. "Shut up and cook, damn it."

Ariadne sighed and tugged the bowl of lemon and herbs out of his hands. "I knew it."

x X x

As Arthur and Ariadne stepped away from the table directly behind him, Eames made a decision. It was one he'd keep to himself as long as he lived, but he thought that, at least this one time, he could make the sacrifice, and bugger any questions of ethics. He couldn't hear everything in the conversation that had just taken place and _not_ want to do something.

He was actually going to sabotage his work for the sake of someone else – specifically, Arthur.

It was perfectly acceptable, really. He wasn't actually cheating. He wasn't improving someone else's project behind their back, or altering their recipe. He was simply going to alter his original plan for his own dish – but only the finishing sauce, so as not to taint the grades of his two groupmates. Laila and Cliff would be on their own as far as preparing the chicken and vegetables went. Cliff was good on the grill, and Laila's vegetables were nicely blanched and shocked, and whatever she was doing with the butter and herbs smelled quite good indeed. They'd be fine. And his grade in the class was high enough it could easily take a little hit. Besides, it wasn't as if anyone was a _perfect_ chef. A fuck-up or two was to be expected.

A little rifling through the picked-over spice shelves next to the proofing box gave him a quick way to alter his dish. He pushed aside the dried herbs and pepper mills and took the plastic container of cocoa powder. It wasn't necessarily the most disgusting thing he could think of, but it would do. He tossed a bit of that into his sauce, whisked it in, shrugged, and added some more. That should do. And just in time, as Cliff had already sliced the red pepper-crusted chicken and plated that with Laila's vegetables.

Wait. Red pepper-crusted? That might not be quite as awful as Eames had been hoping. He probably should have paid more attention to his group-mates and less attention to the conversation Arthur and Ariadne had been having, or done something simpler, such as tripling the amount of salt called for. Fuck, too late now.

This time, Cobb came around to Eames's table before he got to Arthur's. "Grilled chicken and vegetables. Decided to stay away from the risotto? Let's see what you have."

Laila cleared her throat. "Red pepper-crusted chicken with a spicy sauce and vegetables. We wanted something light enough for summer dining, but flavorful."

Cobb nodded general approval and started with Laila's vegetables. Eames wondered how, in a course such as this one, where the classes that weren't spent making basic components of complex meals to be used by the more advanced courses were focused on creating single-serve dishes, instructors like Chef Cobb could sample so many things and not gain weight as the term progressed. Then again, Eames had never seen more than a few bites taken, which might mean everything was thrown away. Or perhaps Cobb took it all home, froze it, and never had to worry about cooking himself or his wife a meal during the entirety of the school year. Perhaps he'd ask Yusuf the next time he saw him.

"Is that roasted fennel in that medley?"

"Yes sir. I mean, yes, chef."

"Clever addition – it imparts a sweeter flavor and an interesting texture. Well done."

Eames held his breath. If his classmates were performing well, that might help garner him a poor assessment in comparison. Really, all he needed was for Arthur to outshine him enough that Eames could congratulate him on the success.

Cobb's judgement of Cliff's chicken was almost as high, only really faulting him for an improper slicing technique during the plating stage and suggesting he be a bit bolder with the marinade he used before crusting. "As for the sauce," Cobb said, chewing and giving that contemplative look with the squinted eyes that made it look as if _he_ were the one with the headache, or perhaps in need of reading glasses, "it's an unusual choice for this sort of recipe. I was expecting something lighter, to go with the summer theme, or perhaps citrus with something sweet, to offset the pepper, the same way the fennel set off the overall spiciness. Did you use cocoa powder?"

Eames gave a nod. "Yes, chef."

"Usually more at home in a _mole_ sauce, of course, but not out of place here. It's really more of a late summer or fall dish, though, given the vegetables and this sauce. Not exceptionally light, but complex. Over all, I'd say this is fairly well done." He took another forkful of Laila's vegetables and a bit of the sauce pooled on the plate and made a noise of consideration. "You," he finally said, pointing at Eames. "You're the one who improvised the Mornay during the class before the midterm, correct?"

"Yes, chef."

"I was right then. Nicely developed palate. Very discerning. Keep up the good work. Now that we're past the midterm point, this class, as well as many of your others, will be allowing you more freedom and assigning you to work with a partner or small group to demonstrate your comprehension of cuisine."

Well, that certainly hadn't gone as planned. Eames just hoped that whatever Arthur, Ariadne, and that Dana girl had put together was better received. He glanced over at the other table, where Ariadne shot him a little smile and a thumbs-up. He mouthed a thank-you and sighed. It wasn't as if she knew what he'd been attempting. Eames took care to move as close to the other table as possible while wiping down his section of the table with sanitizer. If he was lucky, Cobb was in the mood to hand out loads of praise today.

"...actually quite good. Excellent display of knife skills, young lady. The herbed rice pairs well with the salmon and lemon-herb glaze, which is delicate and subtle. Nice balance of flavors. And the poaching is well done – perfect texture to the fish. Quality dish, overall." Eames breathed a sigh of relief and went back to scrubbing his work station. He missed whatever else Cobb said next until the moment Cobb took a step back and half-turned his direction. "... _would_ like to see a bit more experimentation." Cobb's hand clapped down on Eames's shoulder. "Perhaps you should get together with this fellow here – he might be able to give you some tips."

Eames looked away from Cobb's hand just in time to see Arthur – who looked exceptionally pale and an unhealthy greyish-green color – clench his jaw and furrow his brow, brushing off Ariadne's hand on his elbow. Damn it all to hell. He was unable to think of a way to respond, either to Cobb or Arthur himself, and so just stood there, speechless, until Cobb left and Arthur leaned in and said something to Ariadne before walking quickly out of the kitchen.

"Well," he said finally to Ariadne as they gathered their bags – Arthur's messenger bag slung over her own bag – from the cubbyholes near the entrance to the kitchen, "I do believe that's it on our little project."

Ariadne raised an eyebrow and let her hair out of the bun she kept it in during their kitchen sessions. "What are you talking about?"

"Don't tell me you didn't see that look on Arthur's face when Cobb suggested he take advice from me. That's it, Ariadne. I'm never going to impress Arthur, and I'm certainly never going to get him." He shouldered his own bag. "Lost cause. I give up. But thank you for trying to help, love. Much appreciated. I'll see you tomorrow in Mediterranean Cuisine." Leaving her standing there, gaping at him, Eames turned and headed for the door. It had been a foolish plan from the beginning and, stubborn though he was, even he knew when something was hopeless. 

The look on Arthur's face had conveyed that _quite_ clearly.

x X x

It had been over a week since their first practical exam in Chef Cobb's class, and though Arthur's apartment now had running water, his car was once again running, and he'd yet to have another migraine after the first thirty-six-hour one, things were still not going his way.

Arthur had thought, back when he'd selected Introduction to Wines as part of this semester's class schedule, that he would feel perfectly at home in this environment. After all, his parents had been hosting dinner parties his entire life, and there was _always_ wine involved. By the age of ten, he had known that one never, not ever, called a sparkling white by the name of Champagne if it did not legitimately come from that region of France. By thirteen, he knew that Chardonnays were best served chilled. By sixteen, though his parents didn't know it, he knew he preferred Chardonnays that were a blend of traditional fermentation and malolactic fermentation, because he enjoyed the buttery flavor. At eighteen, he was comfortable enough with the concept of wine-tastings to look natural while spitting, granting his fake ID a bit more credibility.

But now, here, at age twenty-six, he was anything but comfortable. And it had little to do with being out of his depth in regards to the material.

"You know what lends blush and rosé wines their pink color, don't you?" Eames said as he, Arthur, and the other person at their table marked the _Weißherbst_ they had just sampled on their worksheets. 

"Depends on the variety," Arthur muttered, as Todd made an interested noise and said "dunno."

"Well, there's blending and the _Saignée_ method," Eames continued, not appearing to hear Arthur's comment. "But you do remember the third method of production Saito covered, don't you, Todd?"

Arthur glanced upwards to see Todd's mystified expression and snorted. He looked like he'd actually been drinking the entirety of each sample in front of him on his mat, which might account for the dopey expression. The lack of answer drove Arthur nuts. "Skin contact," he finally supplied with a grunt.

"Quite right. As Arthur's just illuminated for us, _skin contact_ is the third way. It's a very important method, one you should try to remember."

Todd giggled – actually giggled, though he had to be thirty, or maybe just over. He dropped another rung in Arthur's opinion. "Creating a blush through skin contact," he said, shifting closer to Eames. "Sounds likely to me. Is it always effective?"

Eames slid the remainder of his _Weißherbst_ sample onto the numbered mat in front of him and turned toward Todd. He smiled and ran one finger across the back of Todd's hand. "You tell me."

Whether Todd actually blushed or not, Arthur couldn't tell, because the bastard's cheeks were already flushed from the wine he hadn't spat into his provided cup or poured into the community bucket in the center of the table. "There might be something to it," he said with an even wider grin, leaning so far towards Eames that Arthur was worried Todd was going to start kissing him then and there.

"White Zinfandel's the last one!" he broke in, voice too loud. Even he heard the panic in his tone, mixed with something darker, bitter. He lifted his glass up to the light, tilting it slightly away from himself to see the color through the rim. It had the extra benefit of obscuring his view of Todd, who Arthur sort of wanted to punch in the face for no reason he could really define. "Clear, pale rose." He stuck his nose in his glass and breathed deeply, forgetting entirely to even swirl the damn thing and check its legs. "Strawberry, hint of...orange, I think. Some sort of citrus."

Todd squinted, looking at his glass like he could see the flavors if he looked hard enough. "I don't smell any of that."

Eames swirled his own sample around by the stem, glass resting upon the tabletop, and then jotted something down. "That's because you've been drinking, not tasting, pet."

That was it. Eames ignoring him, Arthur could deal with. Hell, he'd actually been wanting to be left alone. Even the touching and the back-and-forth, light-hearted banter he could take, if he had to. But "pet"? No. That was too much. For the love of God, they were in the middle of class.

"Why don't you two cut the flirting and finish the tasting," Arthur snapped. "Then you can grope each other in the hallway afterwards or whatever this is leading to."

Eames straightened up, pulling away from Todd and turning his entire body towards Arthur instead. Head cocked to the side like a curious puppy, he regarded Arthur in silence. He didn't even react when Todd attempted to take his hand. After a very long moment, he nodded slightly. "All right, Arthur." He took a small sip of his wine and pursed his lips, and tilted his head back, sucking in a bit of air. At least he knew how to do it without making that disgusting gargling noise Arthur hated. After a moment, he swallowed. "Strawberry, certainly. Maybe cherry. And yes, that seems like citrus."

Arthur took a very deep, very slow breath. So Eames had decided to be professional, or at least not give in to molesting Todd at the table. But as Arthur wrote down his notes in the last spot on the worksheet, he saw Eames turn toward Todd with a small grin. Worse, he saw the way Todd looked at Eames, flushed and somewhere between flirtatious and predatory. The pencil in his hand – the number three graphite, which he preferred and had to order specially – snapped. Arthur looked down at it and cursed under his breath, stuffing the end with the eraser into the pocket of his jeans. What the fuck was wrong with him? He knew Eames was a flirt. So why did it bother him so much more now that he wasn't the one on the receiving end? This should be a welcome change.

Arthur considered it severely bad luck that they had no more wine samples in front of them. He could sort of use a good buzz right about now. 

He was still thinking about the events in Saito's class an hour later in Chef Yusuf's class. Ariadne was talking about...well, something, but hell if he was listening. "Arthur. Arthur. Hey, seriously, _Arthur_." 

The last repetition was punctuated with a sharp jab to his side, nearly making him drop the bowl in his hands. "Ow, what the fuck, Ariadne?" 

She glared at him. "What the hell is _wrong_ with you today? You're acting like someone wronged you and you won't be happy until you've gotten blood."

"What are you talking about? I'm fine."

"Yeah, that's why you're not only ignoring me while glaring at something I can't see, but also why you're whisking so aggressively. What the hell did that ganache do to you, huh?"

Arthur looked down into the stainless steel bowl cradled in his left arm. The chocolate had definitely melted into the hot cream, but he'd been stirring so hard the mixture was full of bubbles and would be useless for enrobing anything. "Damn it."

"See? What's got you so pissed off? Something go wrong in Wines?"

Arthur pursed his lips. Considering his immediate reaction was to tell her that the only thing wrong was that Todd had had the nerve to flirt back with the person coming on to him, Arthur decided the best course of action was silence. Besides, that didn't matter anyway. What the fuck was he thinking? He didn't want Eames flirting with him, so why should it matter if he did it with someone else – someone who seemed to be far more receptive, at that? "No. Nothing went wrong."

Ariadne rolled her eyes. "Fine. Don't tell me. Just please stop mistreating that poor chocolate, okay? We need that. I am _not_ finishing my _petits fours_ with fondant, damn it. It would completely mask the flavor of the raspberry mousse."

Arthur sighed and set the bowl on the table, gripping the edges tightly and tapping the bottom against the tabletop a few times in an effort to force the bubbles to the surface. "God forbid."

Ariadne elbowed him again, placing the _petits fours_ on the draining rack and handing him a bag of dark purple royal icing and a fresh half-sheet tray lined with parchment. "Shut up and pipe some violets, would you? We'll need these tomorrow. You've got to be good for something today."

Making a face, Arthur took the bag from her and began making drop flowers. He quickly lost himself in the process, making sure each was the same size and the icing was mixed enough so that the flowers would hold their shape as they hardened overnight. By the end of class, though still sort of irritated, he did feel significantly better. Detail work did that for him. He sighed. Ariadne knew that about him, he was pretty sure. He caught up to her at the door and gave her a nudge. "Hey."

She looked over he shoulder and raised her eyebrows at him, as if waiting for something said in anger or irritation. "Yeah?"

He just shook his head slightly. "Thanks."

Immediately, her face softened, even though she shrugged, let down her hair, and tossed it over her shoulder. "No idea what you're talking about."

Arthur scoffed, but managed a genuine smile. "Yeah. Right." He bumped his arm against hers. "Still." It was nice to know that even on shitty days, there was someone he could count on to look out for him.

x X x

Eames was standing in front of a vending machine, pondering his options for sweets, when a soft voice spoke up immediately behind him. "You know, if it's something sweet you're after, I think I could offer something a bit more satisfying."

Eames turned around, grinning widely and seeing a similar expression on the face of his old friend. "Yusuf! How _are_ you?"

"Oh, busy as always," Yusuf said. "Trying to keep students from going overboard and trying to be the next celebrity cake decorator. It seems no one wants to master the basics. Too interested in trying for the most impressive, outlandish project. Very few students seem to appreciate the intricate chemistry involved in baking."

"You can keep your chemistry," Eames said, finally giving up on the vending machine. "I'm just interested in the results. Speaking of, you said you had something to offer?"

Yusuf laughed at him. "Yes. Pastry Arts instructor does offer that benefit. Pop into my classroom sometime, and I'm certain we can get you taken care of." He looked down at his watch and shrugged. "Actually, if you're free for a bit now, we can head to my office in the classroom. Catch up. I haven't seen much of you, since you stopped working full time at Tamarind Bay Cafe. Care to join me?"

"Dangle the offer of quality sweets in front of me and ask if I'm willing to come? Oh, Yusuf, I thought you knew me. Lead the way."

"How _are_ your studies?" Yusuf asked once they were settled in the small offshoot of the classroom pantry he used as an office. He held out a small tin of chocolate bonbons, decorated with tiny flowers made of hard icing, and waited until Eames took one. "Do you feel culinary school was the right move for you, now that you're here?"

Eames thought about it. On the one hand, he missed the steady rhythm of working in a kitchen all week, preparing food, feeling a sense of camaraderie with the others back in the kitchen, the place loud with music and chatter as they fried and chopped and sautéed. There was something about losing himself in the method, letting the preparation just happen, simply knowing what he was doing well and finding ways to keep it interesting through hundreds of repetitions. But he couldn't say he didn't enjoy this, too. The lectures weren't always exceptionally stimulating, but he _was_ learning more background to flesh out his knowledge, picking up little tips here and there. Chef Cobb's technique demonstration had shown him that a _bouquet garni_ was definitely easier to do in a sachet bag instead of using string, but that cheesecloth or a coffee filter, or even leek leaves could be used just as effectively. He'd learned to make an onion clouté and add it to his bechamel for better flavor, something that hadn't been done in any of the kitchens he'd worked in. He'd learned that, contrary to what the sous chef in the French restaurant where he'd worked briefly at the age of nineteen had told him, there _were_ worthwhile and perfectly drinkable wines produced outside of France. 

"It might not be a perfect fit," Eames said thoughtfully, nibbling on a bonbon and eyeing the small plate of _petits fours_ sitting on top of a stack of cookbooks nearby. "But it's a good one, I think."

"You're enjoying it, then?" Yusuf followed his glance and sighed, reaching for the plate and removing the cellophane before setting it in front of Eames. "You don't feel I badgered you into it?"

Eames smiled. He'd met Yusuf nearly two years earlier, back when he'd been working in the kitchen at Tamarind Bay and Yusuf's sister had been the hostess. He'd been a regular customer then, and remained one even after his sister moved away to be married. There had been nights where Yusuf, then just starting his teaching position, had been invited to stay after hours by the owners or head of the kitchen, and they'd all sit around, drinking _lassi_ or _sharbat_ or _badam doodh_ , or on nights after exceptionally long or good days, _hadia_ or a lager. They would all sit around in the dining room, music turned off, and talk. Eames would listen to stories of travels and large families scattered across the globe and, eventually, Yusuf had raised the idea of culinary school. It hadn't caught his interest at first but, over time, it seemed more and more appropriate as a next step. "No. You gave a nudge, but didn't force me into anything. Honestly, I enjoy it."

"Keeping busy outside of your courses?"

Ah, here the answer was not as simple. He wasn't, not really. He spent his time divided between sitting in the house he was watching for a friend while the man was in Italy for eighteen months, playing around in the state-of-the-art kitchen, going slowly through the extensive library of foreign films (not an American blockbuster in the lot), enjoying the pool in the backyard during the pleasant days Los Angeles had to offer, and wandering around the city, trying to keep himself occupied. He dated very little. Most of his energy in that area had been directed towards changing that, ideally with Arthur. But now... Well, that was one hope gone, and even other prospects, such as that Todd fellow in their Introduction to Wines course, just didn't hold the same appeal. "Busy enough."

Yusuf regarded him with an expression that was both skeptical and soft, but let it slide. "I know you're happier over a range than icing a cake, but I'm always happy to see you. Don't be afraid to pop in whenever you have a free period." He laughed. "For you, I'll always have sweets on offer. You should come back two weeks from now. My introductory class is working with caramels and toffees."

Eames grinned. "Ah, so you _do_ know me well. You can count on my presence." He stood and gathered his bag. "Sorry to run off, but I've got a pork roast marinating at home, and if I want to eat anytime tonight, I need to get started."

Yusuf stood with him and clapped him lightly on the back. "I understand. It was good to see you."

"Likewise. Tell your sister and her new family I said hello."

"Of course."

With a little wave, Eames stepped out of the pastry arts classroom and headed for the parking garage. He hadn't really noticed until Yusuf brought it up, but he really didn't keep himself busy enough outside of school. He rarely went out and did anything with anyone in particular, most often defaulting to wandering around the city, or driving south to the beaches to spend some time in the sun and watching people, studying them (and the way they moved and talked) like he'd always done, everywhere he went. For some reason he couldn't name, he felt out of sorts. Agitated. Conflicted. Chats with Yusuf usually had the opposite effect, which only made the feeling more unsettling. He sighed. Normally, he'd take advantage of the weather and go for a leisurely stroll in one of the more popular parks. But the roast in his fridge called, and he didn't feel up to dealing with people much at the moment, in any case.

In the end, he calmed himself the way he often did: standing at the marble counter in the kitchen at home, chopping vegetables into even pieces, not thinking about much other than the aroma of them, the way the fingers of his left hand were chilled the longer he gripped the carrots or celery stalks, listening to the crunch as he sliced the blade through the body of them. It was soothing – not just for the methodical nature of the task, but also because it reminded him in some not-so-distant way of the first professional kitchen he'd worked in, immediately after reaching the age of eighteen and leaving the most recent place he'd called home. Ari, the sous-chef, had taken him under his wing and set him to the easiest tasks: slicing and chopping vegetables. It was Ari who made sure he had money coming in, even if it was under the table, and had food to fill him before he went back to wherever he was staying and climbed into bed, and had a pint to go along with if things weren't too hectic in the back. He wondered, distantly, as he stuck the roasting pan of meat and vegetables into the oven, how the man was doing, where he himself might have ended up, this many years later, and whether he'd ever managed to start his own restaurant like he'd dreamed, despite his own problems.

Life had a way of showing you a goal, illuminating a path, and then putting up a blockade. Sometimes, though, if you were lucky, you found an unmarked and meandering detour and made it to that goal after all. Ari had believed that. And as Eames sat down in front of the TV with a pint of ale and the evening news as the food cooked slowly in the kitchen, he thought that maybe there had been something to that. He just needed to keep his eyes on those goals he wanted most, and look for other ways to reach them.

x X x

There were many things Arthur knew about himself. He felt that, objectively speaking, he had a pretty good handle on his strengths, and a fair view of his weaker points. Such an assessment had often been given in past employee evaluations. If you needed someone with an eye for detail work, Arthur was often your man. If you needed a level head in most situations, he was there and cool as he could be. If you needed someone chipper and openly enthusiastic over every little thing...well, you'd be best off going with someone else. He was good with facts and theory, not bad at all with analysis, had better-than-fair instincts, was an okay teacher, but he was shit when it came to comforting people, and even worse when it came to small talk in social situations, because it felt like a waste of time, more often than not.

And he could not, as a general rule, deal with stupid or pointless conversation (or _people_ ), especially in an environment where one was supposed to be _learning_ something.

"For the love of God," Arthur hissed, finally turning around to glare at Todd and whoever the hell he was arguing with, directly behind Arthur, "Saito was _not_ on _Iron Chef_."

Both Todd and Laura gaped at him before Todd huffed. "He was too. Someone in my Asian Cuisine class told me about it, and I heard someone else mention one of the instructors was connected to that show. Besides, how would you know?"

Arthur looked back toward the front of the classroom to see that Saito had stepped away from his table in order to start the projector for their slideshow on grape varietals. "He was not on _Iron Chef_ , trust me."

"Are you calling my friend Dwayne a liar?"

Rolling his eyes, Arthur sighed heavily. Ever since Arthur had snapped at Todd and Eames for practically crawling into each other's laps during class, Todd had been especially antagonistic. "No. But I _am_ calling him a moron. Saito was never on the show. First of all, don't you think the school, or at least Saito himself, would take every opportunity to bring that up and parade that accomplishment around?"

"Yeah, maybe. But maybe not if he lost."

"Whatever. Second, your friend has no idea what he's talking about. Saito was never a contestant. It's his cousin who's connected to the show. Takeshi Kaga. Better known as _Chairman_ Kaga."

Todd just stared at him, and Laura raised her eyebrows as the lights in the room dimmed. "And how would you know about that?"

"Oh, our friend Arthur's quite good with research," another voice broke in from behind Arthur on his other side, causing him to jump a little. Eames leaned forward slightly, dropping his voice as Saito pulled up the first slide. "He knows all sorts of interesting facts and tidbits. Seems Saito bought the vineyard the spring students visit, to keep things more convenient. Isn't that right?"

"Bullshit," Todd scoffed. "I'm looking that up tonight."

"Go right ahead," Arthur muttered. "You're wrong."

"Never knew you were such an expert on the Food Network shows," Eames murmured into his ear a moment later. This time, there was no scent of cologne to cloud Arthur's feelings. "You're just full of surprises, aren't you?"

"I'm trying to listen to this lecture," Arthur responded, though he was already familiar enough with the material and honestly a bit bored.

Eames pulled back. "Ah, yes. How silly of me. I'd just assumed you already knew everything we're covering, as I overheard you trying to explain it to Ariadne in Culinary Fundamentals earlier this week."

Arthur had nothing to say to that. He _had_ had that conversation with Ariadne, when she asked what sort of topics they covered in their class during a day in the kitchen with Chef Cobb, but he'd had no idea Eames had been listening. Instead of struggling for an answer, Arthur bent his head and pretended to jot notes on _Viognier_. Eames made no further attempt to talk to him during the rest of Introduction to Wines, and even left him alone in Cobb's class, standing quietly across the table as he, Ariadne, Arthur, and Robin practiced edible garnishes. The whole thing seemed...strange. Arthur had become sort of accustomed to hearing his voice, if not speaking directly to him, then at least in the background.

"I'm not really sure why we have to learn this stuff," Ariadne sighed at the same moment Robin muttered "ow, shit", dropped her radish into the trash, and wrapped a paper towel from the wall dispenser behind her around her finger. Ariadne widened her eyes. "Sorry, did I startle you?"

Robin shook her head. "No. I just really suck at this fine detail knife work shit, unlike the rest of you guys. Hold on, I've gotta go find a bandaid and disinfect my knife and cutting board." She wandered off, right hand squeezing her left, and Arthur was somewhat relieved that even though he couldn't actually _see_ any blood anywhere on Robin's work station, she was still planning on following proper sanitation procedure. He'd seen a couple of students forget things like sanitizing their tools or forgoing gloves when they added a last-minute pinch of something to a dish that wasn't going to be cooked again before being served, and the thought made him shudder. Perhaps that had to do with his own upbringing – his mother was nearly obsessive with hand-washing, inside the kitchen and out, and his childhood babysitter and her boyfriend had been so careful about not being caught baking, the kitchen had been immaculate. Something about all of that had stuck.

"So why are we learning this?" Ariadne asked after a moment, turning back to her carrot stars. "I mean, yeah, it looks really pretty when you do it right, but I'm not sure I see the point." She looked at the table next to theirs. "But that guy who works at Edible Arrangements? Mick? He's _flying_ through this." She gestured down to her own work. "Makes everything I do look pretty sad."

Arthur expected Eames to give an answer, something comforting, probably calling her "love" or whatever little term of endearment he was using this week. Instead, Eames just lifted one shoulder in a shrug and went back to slicing the bell pepper in front of him into thin strips for triangles. Arthur sighed. "Cobb said it was time to learn some simple but effective presentation techniques, but... This feels like busy work to me."

"Exactly!" Ariadne said, pointing across the table at him with her paring knife, before realizing what she had in her hand and laying it on the table. "Busy work! Besides, I'm going to be a cake decorator. What do I need to know how to make bell pepper baskets and lime butterflies and carrot flowers and radish fans for? Actually, the citrus butterflies could come in handy. But the rest?"

"I don't even bother asking," Arthur said, glaring down at his own work. Radish roses, he could do. His weren't plump and open yet, since they'd only been soaking twenty minutes at most, though they did look as if they'd be perfect. But he could not, for the damned life of him, make a tomato look like a fucking rose. He looked up to see Eames already had three perfect ones and one with only a slightly odd look on his part of the table. "I swear to God," Arthur muttered to Ariadne as Eames walked away to get a honing rod in order to sharpen his knife. "With the way things are today, I feel like sticking my head in a goddamned oven."

Ariadne tossed another radish fan into her small bowl of cold water. "Don't do something like that," she said with a small snort. "It's electric, not gas, anyway."

"Could I see the both of you after class?" Chef Cobb suddenly said at the edge of their table, standing just behind Ariadne, who paled. As Eames approached with his newly-sharpened knife, Cobb gave him a nod. "You too, please. Stay after class. I'd like to talk to you."

"What the fuck did I say?" Ariadne said, voice squeaking, as Cobb walked away. "I'm not in trouble for questioning his methods, am I?"

Arthur had no idea, to be honest. He looked down at his work. It was better than simply passable, with the exception of the tomato roses. Ariadne's work looked fine. And Eames had, of course, managed feats of knife work that would make Edward Scissorhands jealous. "I don't think so. If you were, he probably would have asked you to stay after class alone."

"I really hope you're right," Ariadne mumbled, shrinking into her chef's coat somehow. "Cobb can be kind of intense sometimes."

By the time class had ended, Ariadne was hiding behind Eames, using his significantly larger frame to block any sort of attack that might be coming. When Arthur moved close enough, she yanked on his arm hard enough to make him stumble into Eames. Even through his protests and Eames's amused expression, she held them both in place, insisting they had to keep her safe.

"What exactly do you think he's going to do to you?" Eames asked, speaking the first words Arthur had heard him say since he'd brushed him off in Saito's class. He managed to unlatch Ariadne's hand from the back of his chef's coat. "Look around, Ariadne. There are five of us here. Mitch and Johanna are looking just as mystified as the rest of us."

"Thank you for sticking around," Cobb said, finally emerging from the pantry with a clipboard and small stack of papers. "I'll try not to keep you long, since I'm sure some of you have a class right after this one. Are any of you aware of this school's connection with the Someone Cares soup kitchen?"

Both Ariadne and Eames looked directly at Arthur, who felt his face get warm. He cleared his throat. "The school's worked out an internship program with them, right? Some of the interns work there for experience in an actual kitchen with production schedules and actual customers, and some of the more experienced students get six weeks to run – with supervision – a kitchen, manage a small staff of kitchen employees, learn to plan menus, and do it all on a limited budget. Right?"

Chef Cobb just squinted at him for a moment, and Arthur could feel everyone else's eyes on him as well. He could even see Ariadne's slightly awed expression. "You're the only first-term student who's ever known about it when I ask," Cobb finally said, looking impressed and maybe even pleased. "And yes, that's absolutely correct. Arthur, isn't it?"

"Yes, chef."

"The school, as some of you may know, is hoping to expand the pastry arts and baking program in time for the next school year. Among other things, we're looking at offering an artisan bread-making class, which would require the installation of brick ovens. In order to do that, rather than raise tuition and fees, the school board has set up a fundraiser dinner. Half of the proceeds raised will go to the soup kitchen, and a small group of our alumni have pledged to make a matching donation towards the cost of the expansion. Each instructor involved with cooking for the fundraiser has been asked to choose a handful of students to showcase the skills we teach here. You five are among those chosen, after conferring with the other faculty involved."

"Really?" Johanna squeaked, looking just as wide-eyed (though less paranoid) as Ariadne had twenty minutes ago. "Even though we're just intro students?"

Cobb favored them with a rare smile. "Yes. I'm not saying you'll be making the most complex items on the menu, and not all of you will be working on the entrée. If you're interested, take these forms and return them by Monday's class. You'll find more information inside." He handed each of them a folder, a small white sticker with their name and student number printed on it in the corner. 

It was funny. It took that small white tag, pre-printed and attached to the thick red paper of their informational packets, for Arthur to understand that though he'd not managed to be perfect, he _had_ been consistently good enough to be noticed. As Chef Cobb dismissed them as a group, offering another smile as they walked out, Mick bright pink and the two girls chattering together, Arthur felt some weight he hadn't been aware of lift off his shoulders. It wasn't gone completely, but he felt noticeably less tense – about everything. He looked over his shoulder to glance at Eames, the last person to leave, unsure if he should say something about their fortune.

Eames caught Arthur's gaze and gave him just the barest hint of a smile, softening the rather stoic expression he'd worn the entire class period. Something about that solidified things for Arthur and, before he walked away from the rest of the group, he offered a small smile of his own, not failing to notice the way something in the other man's posture relaxed as he noticed the expression.

x X x

Eames figured, knowing full well it was a sad attempt at rationalization, that being one of the students Cobb had selected to assist in next month's fundraising dinner called for a reward of sorts. What better treat than to pop over to Yusuf's classroom and indulge in a few sweets, especially as he'd been invited to do so?

When Eames opened the door to the kitchen classroom, he wasn't entirely certain what he'd expected. An empty classroom, most likely, or people standing around tall cakes at a table, glaring in concentration at masterpieces of icing and sugar. What he did not expect was a room that was quite warm, students standing around the stoves on the back wall, faces pink and sweaty, and the smell of buttery sugar pervading the air. 

He stopped, one foot in the door, simply watching the movement in front of him. At the table closest to the door, a pair of students were rough-chopping almonds. Across the room, someone else was using the _Robot-Coup_ to grind something that looked to be, judging by the large bowl of nuts in front of them, either walnuts or pecans. A few students were portioning out butter or sugar, taking turns with the digital scales near the pantry, or pouring cream into liquid measures. Several people were chopping large blocks of chocolate, and even more were stirring things in pots on the stove. Just about the moment Eames had decided to leave and come back later, lest he be in the way, Yusuf spotted him as he exited the pantry. "Come on in," he said, handing a petite blonde a liter bottle of vanilla bean paste. "Feel free to stay, but do try and keep out of the way."

Eames looked at the number of people peering at candy thermometers and muttering into pots and decided that "out of the way" was a very good place to be. With a nod, he ducked into the doorway of Yusuf's small office just off the pantry. He watched from the safety of the office, a bit bored with it all, until Arthur appeared from somewhere and walked towards the pantry, pausing as he spotted Eames.

"What are you doing here?" Arthur asked, eyebrows arched. "Don't tell me you're Chef Yusuf's T.A. or something."

Eames shook his head. "No. I'm here merely to reap the benefits of being friends with the very generous pastry arts instructor. Toffees and caramels this week."

Arthur shook his head and gave a little huff of irritation, but it was missing some of the sharpness Eames was sadly used to. "Whatever." He pulled a box off the shelf to Eames's right and removed a can of non-stick baking spray, a different brand than the one they used in all of the classes Eames took. "Excuse me."

"Of course," Eames said, pressing himself even further out of the way, though it was hardly necessary. Odd that he found Arthur's use of 'excuse me' an improvement in their relationship – not that they _had_ a relationship of any sort – but still. He was tempted to give Arthur a smile or attempt a bit of conversation, but that had got him absolutely nowhere before, and had in fact seemed to hurt things in Saito's class last week. Still, Arthur had given him the slightest of smiles after Cobb had selected them for his fundraiser project, and maybe that meant.... Well, something?

Eames did indeed stay as far out of the way as possible the rest of the class period, though every now and then, a whiff of something sweet and nutty would drift his way and he'd find himself nearly salivating. The cure for that appeared to be the moment when someone on the closest stove top burned the contents of their pot into a molten mass of charcoal, smoke spewing everywhere. Eames was standing up to leave, his bag already over his shoulder, when a sharp shriek from the row of ranges stopped him.

His head snapped in that direction, a bit of habit that had served him well in his previous kitchen jobs, and looked just in time to see Ariadne wrap a towel around her hand at the same moment the girl at the stove behind her, next to Arthur, wobbled unsteadily. It was at that moment that all hell seemed to break loose.

The girl Arthur had been working with – a tall, slender redhead Eames had never seen before – went deathly white. Eames saw Ariadne, still grimacing a little, but looking increasingly worried, move forwards and say something to the taller girl, and then the girl simply sank to the floor in a very ungraceful manner. Yusuf rushed in that direction the same moment Arthur let out a muffled shout, and with the number of bodies surging in that direction and people chattering loudly over one another, Eames lost sight of exactly what was going on. He continued to watch as another student shouted orders, kneeling down along with Yusuf at the redhead's side. A bloke who was easily a head taller than Ariadne grabbed a pair of vinyl gloves from his work station, put them on, and tugged Ariadne towards one of the sinks with a first-aid kit mounted above it. The student kneeling on the floor – a paramedic in a past career, Eames would bet money on, or at least a first responder of some sort – continued to tend to the girl on the floor as Arthur, who had broken away from the crowd, ran his forearm under water from the sink just outside the pantry, an expression of extreme relief flooding his face.

Eames stood and moved towards Arthur, intending to ask if he was all right, but a simple look down negated the need for such a question. There was an angry red welt nearly the length of Eames's entire hand reaching from Arthur's forearm up to the back of his hand. "What happened?" Eames asked, moving closer.

Arthur didn't respond for a moment. Instead, he reached over and turned the cold water up, very gingerly rubbing at the red mark with his left hand and wincing. "Freak accident. Ariadne cut herself."

"Yes, I saw that. Or rather, I saw the blood on the towel. What happened to you? Not to mention that girl over there on the floor?"

Arthur looked over his shoulder, where the entire class was still more or less gathered around the student on the floor, who was at least starting to stir. "Oh. Apparently, Tiffany's one of those people who faints at the sight of blood. She passed out, and when she did, the spoon she was stirring the sugar syrup with fell." Arthur nodded towards his arm, where the red mark was spreading outwards, a few small blisters starting to form. "Caught me on the arm." He sighed. "Watch out, there's another first-aid kit just inside the office. Chef Yusuf said there's burn cream in there."

After a good thirty seconds of watching Arthur struggle with the contents of the first-aid kit, Eames decided Arthur's distaste for him could take a flying leap for a few moments. "Oh, here, let me," he said, shaking his head and plucking the packet of salve and the small, wrapped roll of gauze out of Arthur's good hand. "You obviously can't do this left-handed." He pointed to the chair at Yusuf's make-shift desk. "Sit. I'll be right back." Wonder of wonders, Arthur actually _did_ sit as Eames went to wash his hands, looking a bit stunned, whether from the injury or because he'd found himself obeying, Eames had no idea. "Now. Give me your hand."

Tentatively, Arthur extended his right arm, and Eames took his hand, holding it gently at the wrist from underneath. "Hurts like hell."

Eames smiled as he turned Arthur's arm carefully side to side to see just how big the burn was. "I have to say, I'm actually sort of impressed. I don't think you even swore. I've heard some pretty colorful things said after lesser injuries."

"Just because I didn't shout them doesn't mean I didn't think them," Arthur said, scoffing. "I just didn't think it was the best idea to say some of those things in front of my instructor and other students."

"Ah, see, next time, you should consider swearing in other languages. Vents the frustration, helps negate the pain, and distracts you as you try to recall the words. Plus, no one can hold what you said against you."

Arthur snorted, then inhaled sharply as Eames's fingers slowly smoothed a layer of salve over the burn, starting on the back of his hand and moving upwards towards his elbow. "Yeah? How many languages can you swear in?"

"Oh, well, Greek, of course," Eames said, careful to keep his touch as light as possible. There was no doubt the injury stung, given the way it looked. "A little bit of French, a handful of Spanish, some Portuguese. A few phrases in German, though most of those sound too much like English to get away with anything. Oh, and some Hindi, but you might not want to say those around Yusuf. Let's try one. Repeat after me: _poutanias gios_."

Arthur repeated it back, tripping only slightly over the new syllables on his tongue. "What does that mean, anyway?"

Eames smirked, unwrapping the gauze and winding it slowly around Arthur's forearm. "'Son of a whore'."

"Really? You're actually going to teach me that?"

"Well, I'd teach you how to do the moutza, or perhaps even the double, but that can wait till your burn's healed."

Arthur just looked at him for a moment. "What is that, some Greek version of the finger?"

"Better than that, Arthur. Much better." He wound the last of the gauze over the back of Arthur's hand, coming up between thumb and forefinger, and secured the end with tape. "There. Keep that dry. I wouldn't keep it covered more than a few days, but, you know, see how the blisters do. It'll probably scar a bit, given the way it looks, but all that means is that you're initiated into the ranks of working chefs. Happens to us all, at one point or another."

"Yeah, sure."

"Never met a chef I've respected who didn't have at least one scar with a story behind it. Though half the time, the story's not even close to what really happened. My first good scar taught me to wear my sleeves rolled halfway down my forearm if I'm working with something hot."

Arthur glanced down at his own arm, now covered in gauze. "Probably a lesson I'll remember. How bad did you scar, then?"

Eames shrugged and shoved his left jumper sleeve up with his right hand, exposing a dark, straight line just an inch above the crook of his elbow. "Not my worst injury. Sheet tray. Pulled it out of the oven and slipped. Give it another year. Then you and I can compare kitchen injuries."

"Yeah, I don't think so," Arthur snorted, carefully rolling his left sleeve down just above his wrist, wincing again when he bent his burned wrist too far backwards. " _I'm_ careful in the kitchen."

"If you say so," Eames said, shrugging. They all were, weren't they? It wasn't as if any of them intended to burn or cut themselves. But Arthur would learn that soon enough, if he hadn't already. "Well, now that you're all patched up, I'll just be off. If you don't mind, would you tell Yusuf I'm sorry to leave without saying goodbye? He looked a bit wrapped up in dealing with the girl who fainted."

"Yeah, I guess I could do that." Eames nodded and once again shouldered his bag, headed out of the office and for the classroom door. Before he got very far, he felt a hand on his elbow. "Hey, Eames, wait a second."

Eames turned, eyebrows raising as he caught Arthur's conflicted face. "Yes?"

Arthur raised his bandaged arm just slightly. "Thanks. Hard to do when your dominant hand's the one that's injured." He held Eames's eye for another moment, finally giving him something that looked like it wanted to be a grin, but couldn't quite make it. "And thanks for the impromptu Greek lesson."

Eames smiled widely. "Just do me a favor. Practice it. And some day, when its use might be appropriate, say it where Ariadne can hear it. I'd love to hear her reaction." And with that, he turned and left the classroom, completely uncaring that the day's activities had yielded nothing in the sweets department.

x X x

The kitchen was loud, crowded, hot, and full of frenetic energy. And Arthur loved every damned minute of it.

When he and Ariadne had arrived this evening, stepping into the back of the church that had offered their space to the school for the fundraiser event, things had been calm and controlled, with chef instructors beginning to set up work stations and gather tools for their stations, and a large vat of something already simmering in the massive steam jacket kettle. Cobb flagged them down and consulted his clipboard before looking up. "Both of you are on garnish preparation for now. Check in over there, with her." He pointed, rather unfortunately, to a handful of chef instructors who were standing together near the walk-in. 

"With your wife?" Ariadne asked, before quickly catching herself. "I mean, with Chef Mal?"

"Yes. She'll get you started, and either another instructor will pull you for another task when you're done, or she'll give you your next assignment."

It hadn't been long after that, Arthur having barely started on radish roses for the center of the evening's individual salad portions and Ariadne once again working on carrot flowers that would this time be paired with green onion strips and caviar to make black-eyed susans adorning the plate of those who would be having the fish, that the other students had arrived and begun work on their assignments. The more experienced students were quickly set to working on the soup, the entrées, and the side dishes, while others Arthur recognized from his own classes continued on with the mundane tasks. The volume rose steadily along with the temperature, and Arthur found himself thinking of _Iron Chef_ as students darted around the kitchen, grabbing ingredients from the walk-ins and reach-ins and the pantry that looked stuffed full of ingredients, solely for tonight's event.

"Hey, you!" A female voice snapped, and Arthur looked up from the cutting board he'd been wiping down to see a chef instructor he didn't recognize pointing at him. "You've got good, quick knife skills. Follow me." She glanced around the table and shrugged. "You too," she said, gesturing to Ariadne. "You two can chop while we pull someone else from that station to sauté."

"So what are we doing here?" Arthur asked, raising his voice to be heard above the din of people pounding cuts of beef flat at a nearby station.

The chef instructor looked at him like he was dense. "A turducken. And Cornish game hens. But what you two, specifically, will be working on is dicing onions and celery for the stuffing. When you're done, give your ingredients to the person on the last sauté station. He'll come back and you'll all finish prepping the stuffing and then actually fill the birds. Recipe's right here." She gave an irritated little tap to a laminated piece of paper tucked under a large container of poultry stock, before walking off, already shouting an order to another table.

"Rock, paper, scissors for the onions?" Ariadne asked, giving the blade of the knife she pulled from the magnetic strip a quick swipe with her thumb.

Arthur shook his head. "I'll do them, it's fine. They've been refrigerated, so it shouldn't be so bad."

"Famous last words," Ariadne said, smiling as she reached for the tub of celery stalks. After a moment, she made a little amused humming noise. "I didn't know Eames taught you his onion trick, too. When'd he do that?"

Arthur shrugged as he continued to slice. His eyes were threatening to tear up, but it wasn't so bad. "He didn't. I watched you do it the third week of class, after he'd shown you. It's a better technique than we were taught during demonstration."

"You ever tell him that?"

"Why would I?"

Ariadne sighed. "Never mind. Just chop, before that woman comes back here. I've heard about her – Chef Cobol. Count yourself lucky we have Cobb as our intro instructor."

"She doesn't exactly scare me."

"Yeah? You say that now. I heard she manhandled another student out of the kitchen for being careless with some random detail in a recipe. No one ever saw him again."

"Well, maybe he wasn't cut out for this sort of thing and dropped out."

"Yeah, or she killed him."

Arthur looked up from his rapidly-growing bowl of diced onions. "That's it. No more murder mysteries or action films for you at two in the morning."

"What are you, my mother?"

"No. I'm just the guy you text at two-thirty, when you've freaked yourself out in your dark apartment."

"Touché. Now chop, Arthur, or face the wrath of Cobol for a job done improperly."

"All right," Arthur said several minutes later, his eyes watering so badly he could barely see. It didn't seem to matter how often he wiped his eyes with his shoulder, a trick he'd picked up quickly to avoid touching his face and having to wash his hands every ten seconds in the kitchen – they just teared right up again. "Now who're we giving this stuff to?"

"Whoever's on the last sauté stat– oh! Eames. He's the one at the far left." Ariadne promptly dumped her celery on top of his onions. "Here. Take those over there to him. I'm going to go throw this stuff in the dish pit."

"Ariadne, I can barely even _see_ –" Arthur started, before realizing she'd already run off. "Oh, fine." He made one more attempt to blink back his reaction from the onions, sniffled hard, and made his way to the last in the line of sauté stations, calling out warnings as he wove through the other people working. "Eames. I guess this is for you."

Eames turned, looking perfectly at home over a giant sauté pan, face flushed and forehead damp underneath his hat. "Ah, Arthur! Stuffing ingredients, right? Last project before I hand this pan back off to McCarthy." He tossed a large stick of butter into the pan and swirled it around a few times, just enough to coat the surface. "In the pan, please."

Arthur dumped the contents of his container into the pan, hearing the hiss as everything hit the hot metal. He took a moment to watch as Eames stirred everything briefly with a metal spoon, coating everything in butter. Just before he headed off to the dish pit, Arthur took one more glance back at Eames, who had resumed whistling some tune Arthur knew but couldn't identify, and tried very hard not to be impressed when he shoved the pan forwards and yanked it back with a snap of his wrist, flipping the contents easily back into the pan. More than halfway through the semester, and Arthur still couldn't quite manage that trick without ending up with some of the pan's contents smoking down in the stove's burner, or worse, on the floor.

By the time Arthur had run his dishes through the dishwasher and helped the person currently running the machine put a few loads of clean, dry dishes away, Eames had settled himself at the table, across from Ariadne and someone else Arthur recognized from his pastry arts class. Arthur took a spot next to Eames and reached for the recipe that was sitting in the middle of the table.

"Don't need that," Ariadne said, slapping at the back of his hand like he was some ill-behaved toddler. She was lucky his burn had healed over enough that that didn't hurt. "Everything's portioned out except the heavy cream. Forty-eight ounces. Go on."

"When did _you_ start learning to give orders?" Arthur asked, raising his eyebrows and turning around to grab a half-gallon container of cream from the reach-in behind him.

"Chef Mal told me I have to learn to be more of a presence – someone who can't be ignored or pushed to the back of your mind. Someone forceful. How'm I doing?"

Eames grinned. "Not too badly. But you've got to work on your volume – you'll get better projection if you push from your diaphragm. We'll work on that later." He took the bowl Ariadne was mixing things in from in front of her. "In the meantime, let someone with some leverage mix that stuffing." He reached in with both hands and began turning the mixture of cubed bread, spices, and vegetables over on itself. "Randall, the stock, please. And Arthur, the cream."

Much as Arthur would have said he hated the thought of taking orders from Eames – or any other student, really, he didn't bat an eye at the request, drizzling his cream over the mixture in the large metal bowl. As Eames mixed by hand, the scent of sage and onion wafted upwards, and Arthur felt the first stirrings of hunger. He'd been so excited about tonight's project – guaranteed extra credit, so long as they didn't fuck things up – that he'd forgotten to eat breakfast or lunch. "God, that smells good."

"It does," Randall agreed, pouring stock into the mixture. "I bet it's awesome with the game hens. Not that we get to eat any of that. Or the turducken. What the hell is that, anyway? It just looks like some monstrosity of flesh."

Ariadne giggled, the sound cut short when Chef Mal stepped up behind her and placed her hand on Ariadne's shoulder, looking over it and at the items on their table. "Turducken: a fowl within a fowl within a fowl. A bit dangerous and daring, but if done successfully, yields exceptional reactions."

"How does she always manage to pop out of nowhere like that?" Ariadne asked, looking wary.

"I don't know," Arthur said, looking over at their other group member. Randall was poking at the turducken in front of him warily as if, at any moment, the chicken was going to back out and start ranting about the indignity of being shoved inside another bird. "Oh, here," Arthur sighed, handing him a bowl with some of the stuffing in it. "Here. Stuff that. Good and tight, but not so tight there's not room for it to move a bit." He flushed as Ariadne's small, unladylike snort made him realize exactly what he'd just said. Beside him, Eames grinned widely and opened his mouth. "Eames, don't you even say it, I'm warning you."

"Say what, Arthur?" He smirked as Arthur glared at him. "I was merely going to–"

"Yeah, I've got a pretty good idea. Just shut up."

"Oh, come on. How often does one get an opening to use such a good stuffing joke?"

Ariadne snorted again. " _Opening_. Good one."

"Oh my God, grow up, both of you." He tried not to laugh, turning and raising his arm to bury his face in the crook of his elbow to fake a cough when he lost that battle. When he looked up, it was to see Eames grinning at him, the look on his face clearly indicating he hadn't missed Arthur's laughter, though he didn't say anything.

And for some reason, Arthur didn't really mind it that much.

x X x

Eames considered Yusuf a good friend, he truly did, but right at this moment, he could punch him for swooping in and whisking Arthur away to another part of the kitchen.

He didn't know if it was his imagination, or some perfect combination of adrenaline and endorphins they were all experiencing, but he could swear he'd caught Arthur in an honest-to-God laugh, much as he'd tried to hide the fact that he'd been amused by the innuendo. But before he'd had a chance to explore this potential cracking in Arthur's armor, Yusuf had appeared at their table and asked Arthur to wash up and help with the dessert preparation. Arthur's grin had disappeared instantly and, as Randall had shoved the turducken into the oven and Eames and Ariadne had finished stuffing the game hens, Arthur had disappeared to a far corner of the kitchen, completely out of Eames's line of sight.

No matter how involved he was in the rest of dinner prep, Eames couldn't quite seem to get the thought of Arthur displaying an actual sense of humor out of his mind. He thought about it as he temped the game hens. He pondered what it might mean as he headed over to the dish pit to relieve the poor unfortunate who'd been at the task for a while and ran what felt like hundreds of trays of dishes through the machine. And every time Ariadne came back to hand him another mixing bowl or sheet tray from whatever project she was now working on, he found himself unable to ask her if she'd noticed or had any insights as to Arthur's behavior, due to both noise from the machine and an inability to phrase a coherent inquiry. It was enough to drive him mad.

"Hey," someone said behind him, placing a hand on Eames's shoulder and raising their voice over the noise of the machine. "Cobb said for us to go ahead and eat some of the leftovers. You've been back here forever. Go on. I've already eaten. I'll take your place."

Eames finally placed the person talking to him – he'd been the bloke to set him up on the sauté station earlier in the evening. "It's all right–"

"Nope. You, go eat. You're soaked. Kitchen's almost entirely cleaned, anyway. We're only waiting on the last few dishes from the main course, and then whatever comes back from dessert, but they haven't even served that. Cobb and Cobol are talking about letting you intro students head out early, since we're clean ahead of schedule."

Eames gave up any attempt at arguing and shrugged, pulling his chef's coat from where it had been hanging on the corner of the dish shelves, where he'd flung it to keep it dry. "All right. Thanks." He walked back into the kitchen proper, startled at just how few people were now milling around. There were perhaps five students, all apparently from the pastry arts program, standing at various tables and putting the finishing touches on the evening's desserts. Eames walked past them to head for the far table, which had paper plates, plastic cutlery, and an assortment of third-pans with leftovers from tonight's preparations. He was just about to head out the door that led to where the other students were apparently eating, given the conversation he could hear from that direction, when the person working at the table against the back wall caught his attention.

Arthur.

Eames put a small amount of food on a plate for himself before doing the same on another. He wasn't really hungry, true, but he did want to taste a bit of what they'd done that was meant to so impress the potential donors out in the main room. And if he hadn't eaten, being so busy in the dish pit, he would bet good money Arthur hadn't stepped away from the last project of the evening to do so, either.

He slipped quietly through the kitchen, coming up just behind Arthur. "Time to eat," he said softly, passing the plate under Arthur's nose and moving around to see him from the front.

Arthur closed his eyes and breathed deeply, pastry bag of whipped cream going still in his hands. "That smells _amazing_. Is that the stuffing and gravy from tonight?"

"Of course. We've been given permission to pick at what's set out on the table over there. I got the distinct impression you hadn't done so yet."

Straightening up, Arthur sighed. "No. And I can't eat until this is done. Just...set that down, would you?"

Eames shrugged and set the plate down at the next table, leaning back against the metal surface and picking at his own food as he watched Arthur bend over the desserts once more. At another table, he'd seen an assortment of _petit fours_ , students piping delicate designs on the icing's surface in milk, white, and dark chocolate, but Arthur had a veritable rainbow of creams in the narrow glasses in front of him. "What is it you're making?"

"Tropical parfaits," Arthur murmured, head bent low as he piped the topmost later of whipped cream into each parfait glass. "Angel food cake, cubed, on the bottom. Then kiwi, strawberry, mango, raspberry, and passion fruit mousse layers. Topped with chantilly cream."

"That sounds positively divine. Did you at least get to try it?"

Arthur shrugged, tip of the piping bag moving towards the center of each cup in an anti-clockwise direction before being lifted up with a small flourish. "I got to taste the passion fruit one, because that's the one I helped make." He lifted up a finished glass. "Does that look even to you?"

Eames raised an eyebrow. "Even? Arthur, it looks as if you've measured out each layer to the _gram_. You are so ridiculously obsessive-compulsive about these things, it's really sort of adorable." Fuck. He hadn't meant to use that word, even if it was. Arthur had just barely begun to be a little less uptight, and now he'd ruined that. He cleared his throat. "So. Are those berries for garnish?"

"What?" Arthur didn't even glance his way, he was so busy scrutinizing the parfait in front of him. Eames relaxed a little. It didn't seem Arthur had been paying him any attention, and thus hadn't registered what Eames had said. "Yeah."

"That's a nice touch. They look delectable, really. Nice and red. And plump."

"Yeah, kind of like your mouth." Arthur froze, still bent over his desserts, and Eames, who had rather unfortunately just taken a bite of stuffing, promptly choked on his food. By the time he recovered, Arthur was very carefully placing strawberry fans atop each parfait and acting as if nothing out of the ordinary had been said. But Eames was certain he'd heard it, if only because Arthur's cheeks had taken on a very pronounced flush that hadn't been there moments ago.

Before Eames could decide whether it would be best to let Arthur's comment go, or to venture up this new avenue, Yusuf and Chef Mal re-entered the kitchen and headed straight for the tables of desserts. "Excellent timing," Mal murmured, giving a nod to Arthur's work. She nodded at someone in a black skirt and white blouse, who was quickly followed by a small line of waiters in similar attire, and Eames saw that as Arthur garnished, he'd been assembling the parfaits on serving trays. "These to guests with blue dots on their place cards. Red dots, the cheesecakes. Yellow, the _petits fours_. Quickly, as they're being served final drinks."

Instead of finally being left alone with Arthur and no desserts to distract him, Eames found himself with both Cobbs standing between them, looking exhausted but pleased. "Gentlemen," Mal said in that breathy voice of hers that Eames was sure had snagged her husband from the moment he'd met her. "We wish to offer you sincere thanks for your efforts this evening."

"Yes, absolutely," Cobb said, eyeing the kitchen as his wife reached up and played with the back of his collar. "Job well done. I don't know if you two have worked together outside of my class, but I did see you and Ariadne on the entrée station, and it was very nice to see the three of you working so fluidly." He looked at Eames. "And especially refreshing to see someone who was ready to jump into the dish pit to help without complaint. You've worked in a kitchen before?"

"Yes, chef."

Cobb nodded. "It showed." Eames winced a little, aware this was the sort of thing that usually spiked Arthur's irritation and antagonism. "And you," he said, giving a little smile to Arthur. "Cobol and Yusuf had you running all over. Really demonstrated your versatility."

"And his attention to detail," Mal added with a crooked grin. "It's rare to find someone who can keep that and not lose any speed, especially so early in one's career. Keep that up, and that alone might land you a job you desire."

Eames chanced a glance at Arthur, who hadn't yet said anything. He was standing there, looking a bit stunned and somewhat wary, as if this was all some dream, and he knew waking was imminent but was desperate to hold onto the last shreds of this universe. Arthur managed a nod and quiet thank-you to the Cobbs, still looking out of it as they wandered to the next table, where an advanced student was wiping down her station. "Hey," Eames said, nudging Arthur's arm slightly. "Good job. Those desserts really did look brilliant."

Arthur seemed to shake himself. "Yeah?"

"Yes."

A smile stretched across Arthur's face and, for the first time in the months he'd known him, Eames saw that Arthur had dimples. "Thanks." The smile left his face quickly, replaced by a furrowed look before Arthur cleared his throat. "You too."

Eames offered up a smile, slightly stunned when Arthur's reappeared. For the first time in a few weeks, he wondered if it might not be wrong to dare to hope again.

x X x

He was high on adrenaline and stress. That was the only reasonable explanation for saying what he'd said, completely unaware he was even _thinking_ it.

But once his mouth had made that slip and compared Eames's lips to plump, ripe berries, Arthur had to face the fact that he'd actually been considering such a thing. 

He was going to blame it on the lack of food and sleep, should it ever come up again. Because knowing Eames, it would.

Only it didn't. Arthur was certain Eames had heard him, because he'd choked on his food at that exact moment, but he hadn't said anything else once he'd stopped. And instead of teasing him after both Chefs Cobb had left, he'd simply given Arthur, who was admittedly a bit high on the praise by that point, a smile and an earnest compliment, startling a smile out of him. He suddenly felt as if nothing, no matter how ludicrous or trying, could turn the evening sour.

Eames opened his mouth to say something more, but whatever it was – a delayed jab at Arthur's stupid slip, probably – never came out. Instead, hands came out and tugged on the backs of both of their coats at once, and Ariadne crowed a little "she said we're dismissed!", startling Arthur so badly he slammed his hip into the corner of the table, and Eames so badly his plastic fork fell off his plate and onto the floor.

"Geez, Ariadne. Don't sneak up on people in kitchens like that!" Arthur said, rubbing at his hip. "What if we'd been chopping something or using a knife?"

"Well, then I wouldn't have _tried_ to startle you, obviously," she said, rolling her eyes. "But didn't you hear me? Chef Cobol dismissed us. They had more than enough people willing to clean up the dessert dishes, and since everything else is already scrubbed and mopped and put away, we can all go home. Not that I'm going to be able to sleep, you know. I'm wired."

"You don't say," Arthur muttered. His hip was going to bruise, he was sure. 

"Well," Eames said slowly, shrugging a little. "Nothing says we have to go _home_."

"Yeah?" Ariadne asked, pulling off her chef's beanie and running a hand over her hair, trying to smooth it down. "What do you mean?"

"What do you say we go for drinks? Now that you're legal and all, you can come with the big kids. No early bedtime for you, since it's not a school night."

Ariadne smacked Eames in the shoulder and Arthur couldn't help but grin just a little. "I'm up for it. Arthur, you're coming too, right?"

Arthur hesitated. Eames was asking, which, normally, would have meant that he'd decline out of principle and wanting to get through the evening un-annoyed. But Ariadne was also going, and Arthur could admit he'd actually had a decent time out with the two of them during their study session – not only had he done well on the exams regarding the things he'd already been fairly certain on, but he'd _flown_ through the section on cuts of meat and recommended cooking methods, thanks largely to Eames's assistance in sketching, labeling, and noting such things that day. And if he was being quite honest, he _did_ feel that this evening, with the praise from the Cobbs and his own personal sense of satisfaction, called for a celebration of some kind. "Yeah. I'll come. Where did you have in mind?"

"Hadn't thought about it, actually. But I'm open to suggestions."

"What about Floor?" Ariadne asked. Eames made a face. "What? What's wrong with it?"

"Have you been there before?"

"No, but my cousin loves it."

"Your cousin's a bit of a partier, isn't she?"

"Yeah, how'd you know?"

"Floor. It's a reference to that saying – one tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor. It's not far from UCLA, and they cater to sorority and fraternity members. I knew someone who spent nearly all of her salary there. Not my sort of place, love. Frankly, I don't think it would be Arthur's, either. _Or_ yours."

"Well, then what's your suggestion? And if you say something with the word 'pub' in the name, I'm vetoing it."

"What about Eternal? Do either of you know it?"

Ariadne shook her head, but it sounded familiar to Arthur. "Do you mean that place near the Hollywood Memorial Cemetery, or whatever they renamed it? Over on Santa Monica?"

"Yes, that's it. Stumbled upon it after visiting Douglas Colvin's grave last year."

Arthur's eyebrows went so high they probably disappeared. "You went to visit the grave of Dee Dee Ramone?" Somehow, he just didn't see Eames as a Ramones fan.

"I went to pay my respects, yes. Him and Johnny."

"I'm sorry," Ariadne said, looking at them like they'd gone crazy. "Who are you talking about?"

Both Arthur and Eames turned to look at her. "The Ramones," Arthur said slowly, hoping she just hadn't heard them.

" _Who_?"

Eames looked like someone had just hurt his feelings. " _Sheena is a Punk Rocker_. _Baby, I Love You_." Ariadne still looked at them blankly, before Eames finally said " _Blitzkrieg Bop_?" at the same time Arthur desperately blurted, " _I Wanna Be Sedated_!"

"Oh!" she finally said, recognition dawning. "I know those. One of them is in _Rock Band Three_."

Eames looked over Ariadne's head at Arthur, wounded. "That's it. I'm kidnapping her and bringing her back to my place. I'll teach her how to make a proper Greek meal, and you're bringing the music. Someone has got to educate this girl. For her own good."

"You honestly don't know The Ramones?" Arthur asked, feeling almost as wounded as Eames looked. "Where did you grow up? Under a rock?"

"Funny. So is that where we're headed? Eternity?"

Arthur looked at Eames and shrugged. "Yeah, looks like. I'll give you a ride there and home after, since you don't have your car."

Ariadne suddenly looked almost panicked, until Eames chuckled and said, "No, I'll take her. I have _Rocket to Russia_ in the glove compartment. Meet you there?"

"Yeah, sure."

Arthur found himself wondering, approximately halfway to Santa Monica Boulevard, exactly how it was he'd come to the point of going out for drinks at just after ten o'clock on a Saturday instead of unwinding happily in front of the television, snacking on leftover Thai food. As a general rule, he didn't really enjoy bars in Los Angeles. They felt too much like meat markets on the weekends, crowded and full of people who just wanted to get either laid, or as hammered as possible, to cope with the fact that they couldn't find anyone to get laid _with_. He was tired of being given coy looks from across the room by women wearing thick makeup or fake tans that made them look orange, but his one experience in a bar in WeHo – a place called The Toolbox – had left him slightly traumatized, to the point where he wasn't sure he could ever consider walking into a gay bar without cringing and wishing he were wearing body armor.

Come to think of it, West Hollywood wasn't really that far away. Arthur shuddered. "Never again," he muttered to himself, winding up the levels of the nearest parking garage that looked both safe and reasonably priced for L.A. "Not unless I'm already drunk first."

Making his way into Eternity after showing his ID to the bouncer, Arthur found Ariadne and Eames sitting at a high table tucked into a corner. He was glad he'd taken the time to change out of his chef's uniform in one of the restrooms at the church, as both of the others had done the same. Ariadne was wearing a pair of jeans that looked legitimately worn-in instead of being fashionably distressed before purchase, and a green sweater that went with her eyes. Eames was wearing something equally simple: jeans and a charcoal-colored T-shirt. Both of them, like Arthur, wore their kitchen shoes. Though he'd been out with Ariadne a handful of times during the semester, and with the both of them just before midterms, it still felt odd to see them outside of a classroom or kitchen, especially since Ariadne had her hair down, loose around her shoulders and down her back. "Hey, Arthur!" she called, flipping her hair over her shoulder and waving. "Over here."

"Have you been here long?" Arthur asked, slinging his jacket over the back of the one empty chair at the table. Ariadne's feet were swinging far above the floor in a way that said she'd already gotten comfortable, but neither of them had drinks yet.

"Five minutes, perhaps," Eames said, fiddling with his watch. "Care to accompany me to the bar to place our order while Ariadne holds down the table?"

"Yeah, sure. Ariadne, what do you want?"

"A rum and coke, I guess? I don't know. I usually just drink wine. Pick something you think I'll like."

"I think I know just the thing," Arthur said, grinning. "Come on, Eames."

Eames followed closely behind him, pressed nearly up against him as they stood at the bar, crowded by the mass of other patrons. Arthur wondered if there was a woman in the place who didn't smell like makeup or some overly sweet floral perfume. The bar's male population seemed to have all shared the same can of body spray, a scent that reminded Arthur of his college days and guys who tried too hard. He felt a deep level of shame that for a month or two during his undergrad, he'd actually used the stuff until his lab partner had told him he needed to tone it down, at which point Arthur discovered there _was_ no toning down of that particular brand's fragrance. He'd switched to standard deodorant and light cologne, almost immediately attracting the interest of a ludicrously hot guy living down the hall of his building at the time. Arthur had considered that enough evidence for him and had never looked back.

"Whiskey sour and a White Russian," Arthur ordered when the bartender had finally made his way over to them. "And...?" He looked at Eames.

"Black and tan."

"And a black and tan."

The bartender had scarcely walked away to start their drinks when a pair of girls who might have been in their late twenties slid up and inserted themselves at Arthur's side. The blonde one dipped her head so she could look at him from under her lashes. "Hey there."

"Uh. Hi."

"I'm Candi," she said with a little bite to her lower lip. "I don't think I've seen you here before."

Arthur tried to keep from groaning. He looked back at Eames, hoping he'd have a smooth way out of this. He seemed like the sort of guy who could tactfully turn someone down. Or maybe he'd want the blonde. Eames, however, was looking politely baffled at the redhead, who was giving him a very similar look, though she possessed the courage to rest her fingers on Eames's wrist. Well, he'd be no help. "That's because I've never been here before. I just came at the suggestion of some friends." He slid his credit card to the bartender, who'd appeared with their drinks. "Just start a tab," he said, feeling a bit desperate. He turned again to the girl, holding his drink and Ariadne's. "If you'll excuse me. I have to get this to my friend. _She_ 's over there at our table."

"Oh." Candi blinked at him and pulled back a little. "Sorry."

"What about you?" the redhead said poutily, still touching Eames on the wrist. "You only have one drink."

"Ah, yes, but you see, we both belong to that girl over there. And she may be small, but she can be deadly. It's best to just set your sights on someone else, I'm afraid. Less trouble for everyone. Arthur?" And with that, Eames extricated himself from the redhead and made a beeline for their table, Arthur following readily behind, stunned but undeniably amused.

"We're both Ariadne's?" he asked as they reached their table. "Really?"

"I'm sorry, what?" Ariadne asked, reaching for the drink Arthur handed her. "You two are mine? My _what_?"

"I don't know. Ask Eames. He's the one who told those girls at the bar that we belonged to you and that it was safer for everyone if they left us alone."

"What can I say? It was that or invent a wife. I've met a surprising number of women who don't see that as anything other than a challenge, and I don't have a ring to back up the story, anyway."

"You could just have told them you're both gay," Ariadne said, giving them looks that said they were missing something quite obvious. "Since you are."

Arthur blushed. "Yeah, I guess that might have worked."

"Ah, you've apparently not met the brand of girl that considers that a special challenge," Eames said, wagging his finger and sitting down. 

"I guess not." Ariadne took a sip of her drink. "What is this? It's good."

"White Russian," Arthur said, setting his whiskey sour on a coaster. "Oh, for the love of... Those girls are staring at us."

"Who, the redhead and the blonde?" Ariadne asked, straightening up. "Hold on. I can fix that." She slid off her stool and walked around to stand on the other side of the table, between Arthur and Eames. "You'll thank me for this later," she said, dropping her voice. Arthur didn't even have a chance to ask what for before she'd dropped a hand on each of their asses and given it a little smack. Arthur jumped, and Eames spluttered into his drink. Arthur watched in a mix of horror and fascination as Ariadne looked over her shoulder and gave a little wink in the direction of the two women. "There. Problem solved."

"Yes, but now we've been slightly violated," Arthur told her as she thumped Eames on the back. "We're friends and all, but _warn me_ the next time you're going to grab my ass, Jesus. You could have just hidden behind your hair and pretended to kiss me or something."

"Maybe, but now they think I own you or whatever."

"So does everyone else in this bar," Eames said, eyes still watering.

"Well, you're the one who came up with the idea. Next time you want to play a part, you're going to have to commit to it. Make it seem real." She hopped back up into her seat. "Now. Seriously, guys, how cool was it to work that dinner tonight? I mean, Cobb and Chef Mal and Chef Yusuf even gave us compliments. Cobb told me I'd passed his test, and he'd be glad to have me as part of his team, next time he's looking for one for a job. I can't believe he even picked me out of the rest of his class, but he said I was a promising student. He looked pretty happy with you guys, too. Unless he was just happy because his hot French wife was was happy and they were going to go home and–"

"Ugh, Ariadne, stop," Arthur said, taking another drink of his whiskey sour. "Their relationship...just...leave that for them, okay? No one else needs to hear about that, or see it in their head."

Arthur was quite glad that for the next forty minutes, Ariadne seemed to stick to safer topics of conversation. Another round later, Ariadne's phone, which she had been checking periodically, vibrated on the tabletop. She looked at it and sighed. "Damn it. Looks like I have to go."

"Must you, really?" Eames asked. "I was just about to get us another round. Something different for all of us this time. Get you to try something other than a White Russian."

Ariadne shook her head and held out her phone so Eames could see the message on her screen. "Yeah, sorry. Roommate needs me. She'll be here in five to pick me up. But you two should stay. You both worked harder than I did tonight. You deserve some time out. I mean, unless you've already had too much to drink or something."

"Yeah, right," Arthur scoffed. "We've both got a lot better tolerance than you do. We're fine."

"But what about your bag?" Eames asked, running his finger around the edge of his nearly empty glass in a way that made it sing. "It's in my car."

"Oh, it's just my dirty chef's coat and pants and hat. I have spare clean ones at home. Just bring it to me Monday. I'll get it from you after Fischer's lecture or something." She stood when her phone buzzed again. "That's her. Sorry to bail. What do I owe you?"

Arthur waved her off. "Don't worry about it. I'll get yours. Good to have you out with us."

She leaned in and gave him a hug. "It was fun. We'll have to do it again sometime when my roommate's not having a guy-related crisis." She leaned in to give Eames a similar hug and gave him a little smirk when he pulled her down by the arm and whispered something into her ear. "Maybe," she said, raising her eyebrows. "Guess you'll never know."

"What was that about?" Arthur asked after she'd left, waving at them from the door before exiting.

Eames seemed to consider it for a moment. "Nothing, really. It's just that sometimes, I think that one's a bit more devious than we realize." He shook himself. "Right. What do you say we order another round and then take up at one of the pool tables over there?"

Arthur glanced over to where Eames was gesturing. There were six pool tables, only four of which were in use. "You play pool?"

"Well, I'm hardly going to bring home the Mosconi Cup, but I do play a little. Standard American eight-ball, I assume? Unless you know nine-ball or blackball."

"Sorry. Standard American version it'll have to be. You play with fouls?"

"If you like, but I find it more enjoyable not to bother when the object's simply a little fun. Come on, bring your coat. We'll grab another round first."

It was evident from the moment Eames took the break shot that he had definitely been playing a while. "Looks like I'm solids," Arthur said, raising his eyebrows as the ten-ball disappeared from view, rolling through the passageway within the table and hiding there until the next game.

"Looks like you are." Eames took his next shot, only barely failing to sink another ball. "Your turn. Don't bother calling your shot, either. This isn't tournament play. It's all for fun."

Arthur chalked his cue and walked around the table. "We could make this more fun. Want to make a little wager on this game?"

Eames grinned, looking cocky. "What'd you have in mind?"

"Loser brings the winner lunch next Friday?"

"The day we have that lecture and tasting on organic and biodynamic wine in Saito's class? You're on." He held out his hand, smirking as Arthur shook it. "Waldorf chicken salad on a butter croissant," Eames said as Arthur lined up his shot. "Keep them separate until you hand them over. I don't want the croissant to get soggy."

Arthur scoffed and leaned over the table, sliding the cue through the closed bridge of his curled index finger and thumb. He looked up as the seven-ball sank neatly into the corner pocket. "Chicken cutlet, Sriracha aioli, lettuce, and tomato on a French baguette. Actual aioli. Not Sriracha and mayonnaise. I can tell the difference."

Eames just looked at him a moment before grabbing the small blue cube of chalk. "Of course you can."

Ten minutes later, Arthur could feel someone hovering at his side as he lined up a shot. "Look, I know you don't want to have to bring me lunch, but it's not fair to get in the way when I'm trying to take my shot, Eames."

"Oh, I'm sorry, am I in the way?" a voice that was both definitely American and female asked, with a nervous giggle following the question. "I just wanted to see how you were holding that stick. It doesn't look at all like how I do it."

Arthur stood up to find a girl twirling a lock of her hair around one of her fingers and staring at him. "What?"

"I just thought, you looked like you were doing so good, maybe I should pay attention to how you used your hands, in case that's my problem. I can do all sorts of things with my hands, but not that."

Eames snorted from somewhere behind him, trying unsuccessfully to cover it with a cough. Arthur would have kicked him, if he'd been able to reach. "Look, miss, I appreciate the compliment, but we're in the middle of playing here." Arthur looked around and spotted another pool table with a group of five guys standing around it, laughing. He couldn't spot a single wedding ring from where he was standing. "But that table there looks like someone might be free to give you some pointers." He smiled in what he hoped was a friendly but not _too_ friendly way.

"Oh." The girl sighed. "I guess. I don't suppose..." She looked over at Eames, who quickly removed the grin from his face. "Wait. Were you two with a little brunette with big, round eyes, earlier?"

"Yes. Yes, we were."

"Oh. Um. Sorry to interrupt, I guess. Maybe you're right about that other table. I'll go ask one of them or something."

"What the hell was that?" Arthur asked as soon as they were alone and he'd finally managed to take his shot, scratching due to the level of distraction. "What made her think she should come over here and interrupt?"

"Are you telling me you're that oblivious?" Eames laughed. "Oh, Arthur. You can't just lean over like that and waggle your arse around in those jeans without thinking it'll attract _someone_ over. I suppose you should consider yourself lucky that poor girl saw you with Ariadne earlier."

"'Poor girl'? That woman looked like she would have eaten me alive, if I'd given her the opportunity."

Eames chuckled and moved towards the table in order to take his next shot. "Well, then next time, be aware of which body parts you're flaunting. Now out of the way. I only have one ball left before I can go for the black. Remember – green apples in that Waldorf chicken salad, not red. Galas in a pinch, but don't you dare put a Red Delicious in there."

"Oh, shut up and take your shot," Arthur muttered, leaning back against the wall as he waited for Eames to position himself. His eyes settled not on the felt or the pocket Eames was aiming for, but directly on the ass of the man himself, and he gritted his teeth as Eames wiggled his hips back and forth a few times, spreading his legs in order to widen his stance and improve his leverage. His breath caught for just a moment, unexpectedly, before he gave himself a mental slap. Eames was doing that on purpose, Arthur was _sure_ of it. And yet, it didn't make his ass look any less attractive in those jeans, worn and frayed just slightly in the corner of the right pocket, where he often kept his wallet, given the fading on that particular side.

"Damn it," he whispered, picking up his drink and finishing it off. "He fucking would."

"See?" Eames said, straightening up. "One last shot, and you owe me lunch on Friday."

"What?" Arthur cleared his throat and looked at the pool table. Well damn it. He'd managed to make the shot while Arthur had been distracted, too. "Well, hurry up and miss. I want my turn. I only have two balls. Shit, you know what I mean." He felt his face flush. He needed another drink.

"Bet you I can make this left-handed."

"Yeah, right. You make this last shot left-handed, and I'll bring you lunch _two_ Fridays in a row."

"I'll take those stakes. Speaking of, that's what I'd like the second week. A well-seasoned steak, rare and thinly sliced. Horseradish Havarti, grilled red onion, lettuce, and halved grape tomatoes, all on sourdough. Bit of mayonnaise and some salt and pepper, too."

For one absolutely astounding moment, Arthur actually thought Eames was going to sink the eight-ball, but in the end, his arm jerked just the slightest bit on the follow-through and the ball ricocheted off the corner of the bumper. Arthur breathed a sigh of relief. Eames _never_ would have let him live that one down. "My turn." The seven went straight into the corner pocket; the one, in the right center. "Just the eight-ball left," Arthur said with a smirk. He felt good. He hadn't been out in quite a while, telling himself his studies were more important than fun, but after the night they'd had, he could readily admit some fun was in order. And even though this was Eames, and they were in a bar in the heart of Los Angeles, he was still somehow enjoying himself.

"Oh, Arthur?" Eames called just before Arthur took his shot. "I know this is probably going to come back to haunt me, but it's been bothering me this whole game."

"What?"

"It's just...the way you're gripping that cue. It obviously works well enough for you, but I really think you could get better control if you just made one minor adjustment."

"And what adjustment is that?"

"Well, if you just move your hand, and then shift your angle a little.... You know what? I don't think I can explain it. I'd have to show you."

"You want to show me now, in what could be the last shot of the game?"

"Well, yes. I mean, I suppose if you miss, we could just put the eight-ball and the cue ball back as they are right now and you could have your turn your way. What do you say?"

Arthur sighed. Eames did look rather earnest, though, and if Arthur was ever in an agreeable mood, this was it. "Fine. As long as you swear this isn't some gambit to make me lose."

"While I _am_ looking forward to that sandwich," Eames said, grinning, "I'd much rather win it honestly. This is purely to satisfy my curiosity, if you'll permit me."

"All right, fine. Show me what you're talking about."

"With pleasure," Eames said. "Now. Lean over, as you were, and line up that shot." When Arthur did as he was instructed, Eames came to stand at his left. "Now," he murmured, leaning down, practically draping himself over Arthur. "Move the fingers of your left hand like this." He demonstrated a slightly different position of middle and index fingers and waited for Arthur to copy him. "Very good." He moved his own left arm right next to Arthur's and, as Eames's right hand swung up to guide the edge of the pool cue, Arthur realized just how much they were pressed together. It was more than Eames having his hands close. He could feel the other man's chest against his back, his right hip pressed against Arthur's left. Their left wrists were touching, ever-so slightly. Eames shifted just an inch of two, and Arthur felt his leg against the back of one knee. "Now. Grip the cue a bit further back." 

Arthur shifted his hand an inch and a half backwards, until his little finger and the heel of his hand brushed Eames's own hand. He cleared his throat. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been so close to someone where things _weren't_ heading in the direction of the bedroom. "Like this?" He was suddenly deeply glad theirs was the furthest pool table, the most shadowed of those in the room, and no one was at either of the surrounding tables.

"Perfect." Eames shifted again, a minuscule amount, but Arthur could feel his breath on the back of his neck as he whispered. "Now, pull back just a little less than you normally would, and stop maybe a quarter-inch from where you think you should."

The advice didn't sound bad, and it didn't feel awkward, other than having someone fitted so close to him, and even _that_ wasn't too bad, after the three drinks he'd had. But as Arthur drew his cue back, he caught the scent of Eames's cologne, that warm, sweet, earthy scent he still couldn't completely name, faint enough to have been overpowered by everyone else's fragrances – perfume, body spray, cigarette smoke, alcohol – in the bar tonight, but unmistakable now that they were this close. He breathed it in deeply, focus on his shot broken.

"Well, fuck," Eames murmured into Arthur's ear, and then a moment later, he was standing up, no longer pressed against Arthur from torso to knee. "Looks like you won, and I'll be without that sandwich."

Arthur looked at the felt, completely empty of anything other than the cueball. "Oh. Huh. Guess that grip did help." He cleared his throat again. "Thanks."

"I suppose it might have done me more good to wait until after I'd won to show you that," Eames mused, looking down at the table and finally giving a shrug, rolling the cueball into the nearest pocket. "Ah, well, too late now. How're you feeling? Time to call it a night, or are you up for another drink?"

Arthur considered the question. "I think I could handle another drink or two. Have one in mind?"

"Well, as a way of saying congratulations, I suppose I could buy you a Black Velvet."

"What in the hell is that?"

"You've never had one? Three-quarters Guinness, with Champagne floated on top, served in a chilled glass."

"And you really think the bartender is going to know what that is?"

"I'll bet you he will." Eames looked over his shoulder at the bar, which was significantly less crowded than it had been before their game. "Or she, as the case may be."

"Bet? Do you have a gambling problem I should know about?"

"Now, now, Arthur, it's not a problem if you're good at it." He laughed when Arthur just gave him a look. "I'm joking. No. No gambling addictions to worry about. I'm just confident the bartender at a place like this would know what I'm talking about, no matter what I choose to order."

"Oh yeah?" Arthur asked, one side of his mouth quirking upwards. " _That's_ a bet I'll take."

"What's that?"

"We order drinks. Whatever we want, but it has to be something we'll actually drink. First person to find something the bartender can't make is the winner. Loser pays the entire tab for the evening."

Eames regarded him for a moment. "You're on. Stump the Bartender it is. But skipping the Black Velvet, because that's not exactly a challenge." He stuck out his hand. "Deal?"

Arthur took it. "Deal. This should be fun."

"Until one of us dies of alcohol poisoning," Eames agreed with a good-natured snort, following behind as Arthur led the way.

They settled themselves at one end of the bar and waited for a few minutes as the bartender mixed what looked like a half-dozen drinks containing a number of liquors – likely a round of Long Island Iced Teas, from what Arthur could see. She wiped her hands on a towel and leaned forward just enough to give them a good look at her cleavage. Nice, Arthur supposed, but it didn't exactly do much for him. "What can I get you gentlemen?"

"Busy night, love?" Eames asked, giving his most charming smile.

The bartender gave him a considering look. "It's been busier. But I can't complain. What'll you have?"

"Well, see, that's why I was asking," Eames said, leaning in a little closer. "See, my friend and I... I'm afraid we're going to be a little difficult, when it comes to our orders." The bartender raised her eyebrows and stepped back a little, but Eames gave her a look that seemed to put her at ease. "We might be asking for some odd things. But rest assured, we'll tip you quite well, for putting up with us."

"What do you mean by 'difficult'?" she asked. "I might be in the mood to humor you, since it's slowing down."

"Just a few rounds of drinks, none repeating a previous request. We'd like to...try some new things this evening."

"Oh," she said with a little laugh. "That's fine, then. What'll you have?"

"Three Wise Men," Arthur said, smiling. There was a decent chance she'd know it, but he could use something he liked before venturing into more questionable territory, as far as taste was concerned.

It wasn't long before the bartender set his shot in front of him. "My three favorite boys: Johnnie, Jim, and Jack." She looked at Eames. "And for you, darlin'?"

"Lindsay Lohan."

The bartender looked puzzled, and for a moment Arthur was shocked that Eames had won so easily. But then she laughed and reached underneath the bar. "Let me guess: Redheaded Slut, with a dash of Coke?"

"Smart woman," Eames said, giving her a wink. "That's it exactly." He took his drink when it was ready and thanked the bartender when she said she'd be back to check on them. "Cheers, Arthur," he said, holding up his shot glass.

"I can't believe you just ordered that drink," Arthur snorted, but he clinked his shot glass against Eames's. "Down the hatch."

The alcohol burned, not really a surprise given what it was, and Arthur slammed his glass down on the bar, grimacing and wishing he'd had a bit more to eat. He'd had none of the food at the fundraiser, despite the plate Eames had waved under his nose, and the three of them had shared a plate of cheese fries just after they'd ordered their first round. Eames was heavier, and had eaten a little more. Arthur didn't know what kind of tolerance he had, but the physical odds were with him, as far as holding his liquor went. He supposed that just meant he'd have to be especially creative in choosing his drinks.

Arthur did have to admit that their bartender did seem exceptionally well-versed in mixed and layered shots, because nothing they ordered, from a Polar Bear to Gorilla Snot, China White to Liquid Cocaine, or even Y2K or Oil Slick, seemed to go unpoured. "Fuck it," Arthur slurred after downing a Scooby Snack, which he hadn't even been entirely sure was a thing until it was set down in front of him, "I give up. Either she's really good, or she's using an iPhone back there or something." He hiccuped once, feeling his stomach roll a little. "I can't do this anymore tonight. I'm tapping out. I'll even pay. I just can't drink anymore." 

"I'd claim victory," Eames said, setting down his own shot glass, "except I'm not certain I can stand upright once I leave this stool. Split the tab, fifty-fifty?"

"Yeah, whatever." He just wanted to get home, someplace where there wasn't crappy music playing, and where he could lie down, or make close, personal friends with his toilet, if it came to that. "Fuck."

"Hm?" Eames pulled a credit card out of his wallet and handed it to the bartender, managing to sound coherent in his instructions to split the entire evening's tab with Arthur. "What's wrong?"

"My car's here. And I can't walk...however many miles it is to my apartment."

"That's two of us. Driving's right out. Do you want to split a cab? Where do you live, anyway?"

Normally, Arthur would consider that sort of forward, but it _was_ a practical question. "Over near Miracle Mile."

"Well, that could work. I'm not terribly far off Wilshire, just further..." he made a flapping sort of gesture with his hands that Arthur could only interpret as _left_. "Further west," Eames finally said, getting hold of the correct word. "It would be better for both us to share for a while. Any objections?"

Arthur was sure that, in a completely sober state, he'd think of plenty. But he had _long_ since passed that point. "No, guess not."

It was kind of surreal, really, sharing the backseat of a taxi with Eames, the both of them sort of poured into it, sprawled against the cracked leather. At first, they both sat there, looking out their darkly-tinted windows at the blur of streetlights and traffic signals, until Eames laughed quietly, rubbing at his face with his hand.

"What?" Arthur asked. He turned away from the window. The lights outside were streaking past in a way that frankly made him feel nauseated. 

"Nothing. Just...a personal joke, I guess you could say. Inside joke. Whatever the term is. Nothing I could say without having to explain it, which would ruin it."

"Oh." Arthur let his head flop back against the headrest and he closed his eyes. "How much longer till we get to my place?" he groaned. 

Though he couldn't see him, Arthur could sense Eames shifting around. "Five more minutes? Ten? I guess it depends on the route. Why? Worried about the fare?" He paused. "Or don't you feel well?"

"Let's just say I've had more than my usual limit, okay?"

There was the sound of more shifting, and then Eames's knee was pressed into his. "Well, I'm not about to have to pay to have this cab cleaned, so you'd just better do as I am and hold it in until you get out. Give this a try for now." Arthur felt his hand being taken, and then fingers trailing down his wrist, stopping about midway down his forearm, where there was sudden, firm pressure applied by Eames's thumb. "Sit still and let me know if this helps."

After a moment, Arthur sighed and opened his eyes. "Yeah. Acupuncture?" Wait, that wasn't the word. That used needles. "Acupressure?" That was it. Maybe.

"Yes. Doesn't always work, but I often find it helpful. Want me to let go?"

Arthur couldn't believe he was about to say no, but there was no denying he felt a little better. Too bad Eames didn't have some spot to press that would keep his head from swimming. "If you want me to puke on you."

Eames snorted. "Charming. Pity neither of us is likely to remember this moment, come morning. Scoot closer, then. This isn't exactly a comfortable angle." 

Arthur moved closer, wondering what, exactly, their driver was making of this. Then again, this time of night, and this close to West Hollywood, the man had probably seen ten times weirder. He grunted, his left arm still held fast, restricting his movement, and finally got himself adjusted so that he was sitting nearly sideways, facing Eames. He just wanted to rest his head against something, and he was _almost_ drunk enough to consider using Eames's shoulder as that something.

Well, actually, the fact that he'd even _had_ that thought meant he was already too drunk, which wasn't exactly a revelation. Or maybe... Nah.

Although it _would_ let him get another whiff of that cologne Eames was wearing.

Okay, next time? Next time, he was not drinking _nearly_ as much as he'd had tonight. 

"And what's _that_ look for?" Eames asked, swaying slightly. "You're smirking about something."

"Am I?" Arthur shrugged. He didn't say anything else for a while, and the next thing he was aware of, he was handing the cab driver his credit card, giving his best attempt at math in order to leave a decent tip, and trying to climb out of the cab without landing directly upon his knees on the asphalt outside.

"Arthur, wait," Eames said, holding the door open and looking up at the tall building they were parked in front of. "Which _floor_ do you live on?"

"Only the sixth."

"...D'you need some help getting up there?"

Arthur shook his head, which was a pretty stupid thing to do, but he grinned anyway. "Nope. I'll be fine. Any stairs in your place?"

Eames grinned back. "Loads. If I come to class Monday with a broken ankle or black eye, you'll know why."

"Same here," Arthur said, waving clumsily and picking his way along the sidewalk and to the front doors of his building. He _really_ should have stopped about three shots earlier. But just thinking that sort of made everything inside of him give a sickening little roll, and he decided a twisted ankle might be worth risking, if it got him up to his apartment faster, since the elevator was occupied about fourteen floors up.

The sun shone through the flimsy blinds of Arthur's apartment, stabbing him in the eyes in a way that made him long for the old days of cavernous college dorms with blackout blinds. His mouth tasted awful, his feet seemed to be tangled together – with the jeans he wasn't completely out of, he realized dimly – and were hanging off the side of the bed, and his head was buzzing.

Actually, wait, no. That wasn't his head. That was whatever was pressed up _against_ his temple.

Arthur batted at the hard object that was adding to his sense of general misery and closed his hand around it when his fingers identified it as his phone. He rolled over very carefully, mindful that too sudden a move would necessitate an emergency lunge for the bathroom, or at least his trash can. One eye cracked open, he pulled up the new text message that was causing his phone to buzz. The contact name simply said "Emaes", making Arthur wonder firstly when in the hell he'd given Eames his number, and secondly, which one of them had drunkenly entered in the contact name.

The text itself was only one line, timestamped just after nine-thirty, which was nearly twenty minutes ago: _i bet i'm more hungover than you are_.

Grinning despite himself, Arthur slowly texted back: _Probably not. But that's one bet I'm happy to let you win._

x X x

When Eames looked up from his reading for Saito's class in order to check the time, he caught the sight of Ariadne marching towards him from across the courtyard, eyes narrowed and lips pursed. He wasn't sure exactly what he'd done to make her give that look, but he was fairly certain she was about to let him have it for _something_. 

"How long," she began as soon as she'd reached the concrete planter where he was sitting, hands on her hips, "have you and Arthur had each other's phone numbers? And _why didn't I know about this_?"

"Well, hello to you, too," he said, raising his eyebrows and slipping a scrap of paper into his text book before closing it. 

"Answer the question."

Eames shrugged. "Since the night we went out after the fundraiser."

"But that was _Saturday!_ " she exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air. "Look. I saw your number in his phone when he was adding the number for the East Asian market I was telling him about. He didn't say much when I asked how the rest of Saturday night went, either. What the hell happened? You didn't hook up for drunken sex or something, did you?"

Eames snorted, privately pleased to learn Arthur hadn't deleted his number after all. "Hardly. What _did_ he tell you?"

"That he was hungover as hell the next day.". 

"That was it?" It was hard to keep from feeling some level of disappointment.

"At first. But then he said that he beat you at pool." She paused. "And that he was surprised how good of a time he had, even though he usually hates going out to bars in this city."

Well, that felt surprisingly like a victory of sorts. "Really, now?"

"Yes. But that was it. Of course, that's when I turned the mixer on high and flung powdered sugar everywhere," she sighed. "So maybe he would have said more." She fixed him with a calculating look, and he knew – absolutely _knew_ – she was about to press the matter further. "You're out of class for the day, right?"

"Yes. I was just planning on doing my reading and some revising for Intro to Wines, but I –"

"You're going to go ask Arthur out. On a date."

"Pardon me, love, but that sounded like an order." He smirked at her, but she only smirked right back.

"Yeah. It was. Look, didn't I tell you _weeks_ ago I was going to help you get him? Don't be so resistant. Especially now that he's not so...so..."

"Hostile?"

"Yeah, I guess that'll work, though I was thinking more along the lines of 'in denial'. Seriously, Eames. You had a good time Saturday, right? Are you going to tell me you didn't try to flirt with him _at all_? No innuendo? No compliments? No 'accidental' or strategic physical contact?"

Eames thought about demonstrating the new technique while they played pool, and picking imaginary lint off Arthur's collar while they sat at the bar, and taking Arthur's hand practically in his to apply pressure to lessen his nausea, instead of showing him where to press on his own arm. "Well, maybe _some_."

"I thought so. And how'd he respond?"

"He didn't exactly object." In fact, there had been one moment, about halfway into their attempts to flummox the bartender, where Arthur had leaned into him to whisper something he couldn't quite remember now. Something about... Fuck, what was it? He'd been so drunk at the time, he was lucky to remember the incident at all, but he couldn't forget the way Arthur had leaned forwards and put his hand on Eames's thigh to steady himself. He also remembered thinking that it seemed so genuine and not at all contrived, because it was half compliment, half insult, even if Arthur hadn't _meant_ it that way.

Ah, yes, that was it. He'd murmured something about being jealous – jealous of Eames's ease and skill in a kitchen, even though his formal training before this term had been shit, or non-existent, or something along those lines. The fact that he'd admitted to jealousy _at all_ had made Eames just sort of blink, startled, and even through his drunken haze, he'd known it was a point he shouldn't ever bring up with Arthur again.

"See? That's a good sign. Now listen, okay? Arthur's done with his classes for the day. He'll be studying in the cafeteria for a while before he heads home. I _know_ he's not eating in the cafeteria, and also that he hasn't eaten since a crappy muffin this morning. You're going to go find him and ask him out. For coffee, or dinner, or whatever. But you're going to do _something_ , just the two of you, do you hear me?"

Eames just blinked at her. "What makes you think he'll accept?"

Ariadne smacked him in the arm. "What the hell, Eames? You're confident around everyone _but_ him? When the hell did that happen? Just...man up, already. You guys both had a good time on Saturday. Use some of that charm you use on everyone else, and you'll be fine. But I swear, I am like this close to just going up and telling him you like him, if you don't give this a shot."

"You'd do it, too, wouldn't you?" A good look at her verified that yes, she most certainly would. "All right. I'll go and ask. But if he says no, you're putting the pieces of my shattered heart back together with sweets, you hear me?" As much as the prospect of actually having Arthur say yes sort of thrilled him, he had to admit, he was a bit nervous about it. Arthur had rejected him dozens of times by now, most usually brusquely, and Eames has generally been able to shrug it it off. The one time he hadn't, after Arthur had snapped at him during Saito's class, Arthur had somehow been the one to give _him_ the smile first, after Cobb's fundraiser proposal. Eames was fairly certain that now, after an evening of mutually-enjoyed company, a rejection would sting ten times more than it ever had before.

"Oh, just go. You're wasting time. Like I said, cafeteria. I expect to hear back by tomorrow morning."

Sighing, Eames shoved his book back in his bag and shouldered it. He gave Ariadne a wave and headed off towards the cafeteria, which was still full of students, despite the mid-afternoon hour. Eames stepped inside and looked around, but couldn't see Arthur anywhere. This was a stupid idea, anyway. He adored Ariadne, he did, but perhaps her expectations were a little outside the realm of reality. He'd spent the entire term so far trying to get Arthur to open up, or at least _ease_ up a bit, and had really had very little luck at all, except for the other night, when all three of them had been high on endorphins and a few stiff drinks.

Just as Eames was about to turn around and head back out the way he'd come, he caught sight of Arthur at the far end of the cafeteria, sitting at a table alone. As Eames watched, Arthur slid his notebook into his own bag, stood, and left out the door not far behind his table.

Fuck. Now, not only had Eames missed his chance to ask him out – or even talk to him, since he'd been unable to do so in Cobb's class the previous day, or Mal's that day, having only been able to exchange smiles from across the classroom – but he had nothing to tell Ariadne that she wouldn't consider a failure, or perhaps a bit of intentional avoidance. To make it worse, Arthur was no longer wearing his chef's coat, and the way he'd been sitting there, looking serious and studious in his grey v-neck jumper, made Eames even more aware of just how much he fancied him. 

Frustrated, Eames walked across the campus until he got to where he'd parked his car that morning. He'd been pulled out of his own revising by Ariadne and was no longer in the proper mindset for that sort of thing anyway. He could go home and start dinner, or even order in and just lounge in front of the telly, but that sounded supremely unsatisfying. It was too cold to use the pool, being November, and in truth, Eames just didn't want to be home. So instead he paid the car park attendant and decided to take some time to do one of the other things he enjoyed: find somewhere with a crowd, and people-watch.

It wasn't yet three, and rush-hour hadn't properly started on the Ten, so the trip west went quickly, unmarred by stop-and-go traffic, blaring horns, and people making rude gestures and swearing loudly out of their windows. It took just over twenty minutes to get down to Santa Monica, and providence seemed to be with him, as he found a reasonably-priced car park right away. As he had no particular destination in mind, there was no need to spend ages circling the area, trying to find a closer location. 

But even people-watching wasn't quite as interesting as usual. Eames didn't know whether it was due to the unusually high number of couples he saw walking around, holding hands or walking with their arms around each other's waists, or the fact that most people seemed to be headed somewhere in particular, few people meandering just to window-shop, or simply the fact that he couldn't stop thinking about Arthur, who seemed to be everywhere Eames looked, as if he could make him appear by thinking about him, whether it was the bloke walking out of Abercrombie, or one of the people headed for Pottery Barn. Or even the bloke who'd just walked into that spice shop, who really _did_ look sort of like Arthur.

Right down to the dark blue jeans and grey v-neck jumper over a light blue button-down shirt, with the sleeves rolled halfway up to his elbows. He was even wearing the same sort of messenger bag Eames saw every week, slung across his back.

Wait. That _was_ Arthur. 

For just a moment, Eames felt frozen to the spot. Finally, his brain managed to kick itself back on. Hell, he needed more fenugreek anyway, and he'd been meaning to get a few other herbs and spices. If this wasn't the world's best excuse to duck into a spice shop – not that one _needed_ an excuse for that sort of thing – he didn't know what would be.

Waiting another two minutes after Arthur had entered the shop, Eames strolled up to the door, pulled it open, and walked straight up to the counter where an older woman was standing, leafing through a cooking magazine. The woman looked up as he approached. "May I help you with something?"

"I was wondering if perhaps you had kala jeera, or mahlepi."

The woman furrowed her brow. "Well, the kala jeera's over with some of our other middle eastern spices. What was the second one, again? I don't think I've heard of it."

"Mahlepi. It's used in Greek and other Mediterranean dishes – mostly baking. It's the seed of a cherry, usually used as a powder–"

"We don't have anything by that name, but I think..." she trailed off, chewing on her lower lip. "Could you mean mahlab?"

Eames beamed at her. "Yes, that's it. Just another name, that's all."

"Oh, well, follow me. That's sort of tucked into the corner of the baking area. We don't sell it as powder, though – just the whole seeds. But you could use a mill or something else to grind it." She led him over to a shelf with powdered honey, an assortment of cinnamon varieties, and different sugar and spice blends. "Here you go. Let me know if there's anything else I can help with."

"Eames?"

Eames peered around the corner to find Arthur standing there, looking at him with his head cocked curiously. "Arthur? Well, fancy meeting you here."

Arthur raised his eyebrows, but then his mouth quirked up in a small smile. "Yeah. I've been meaning to come here for months. Just sort of browse, you know?"

Eames nodded at the two small jars in Arthur's hand and grinned. "Looks like you're doing more than browsing."

"Well, yeah, once I started looking around..." He laughed, and the sound was still new enough for Eames to relish it. "You know how it is in these places."

"Quite." Eames plucked the larger of the two sizes of mahlepi from the shelf, then let his hand hover over the cardamom. This was indeed a dangerous place for anyone who liked to cook. "I could spend a small fortune in a place like this."

Arthur held up a small jar of saffron. "Tell me about it."

"Indian or Spanish?"

"Indian."

"Ooh, that _will_ cost you a fair bit." Eames reached for the sample container of the cardamom, opened the lid, and inhaled. _Much_ better than the stuff at the local grocery chain, which only sold the powered white seeds. "I do believe I'd better not linger, lest I spend everything in my wallet here." He put the jar back on the shelf and moved away, pausing when he stood in front of another display of spices. "Oh hell," he murmured. "Can't resist." He opened up the anise stars sample and breathed deeply. Only this time, instead of putting it immediately back in its place, he held the opened container out to Arthur. "What do you think?" 

Arthur leaned in, closing his eyes, and Eames brought the jar a little closer, wondering where the hell _this_ version of Arthur – the one who didn't snap at him, and didn't take little things like this as some sort of personal affront – had been all term. He breathed in slowly, and his face relaxed visibly. "It's good." And as if to accent his agreement, his stomach growled. 

Eames couldn't help but grin. "Skip lunch, did we?"

"Yeah," he said with a little laugh. "The thought of eating in the cafeteria for the fourth straight week just didn't sound appetizing. I've really got to start making something to bring with me instead of waiting until I get home."

Eames took a deep breath. "Well... Would you care to join me for a late lunch? Or early supper, I suppose? There's a great place a little closer to the pier, if you're up for a walk. Maybe half a mile from here?" 

Arthur looked away for a moment, seeming to contemplate the rows of bottled baking extracts, and Eames was sorry he hadn't phrased his offer differently. He watched as Arthur picked up a bottle of vanilla beans and turned it over in his hands, facing away from him. "What kind of place?" he asked, almost hesitantly.

And in a flash, Eames felt that spark of hope he'd felt on Saturday evening back in the church kitchen (and then again, out at the bar). "Italian. But their speciality is pizza. Gourmet pizza."

"That sounds good." He put the vanilla beans back on the shelf. "Yeah. I'm up for that." And then he turned and gave Eames a crooked little smile, unreadable in meaning, and Eames wasn't sure whether they were now just two classmates going for a meal after a long day of classes, or two blokes going out on a causal first date. He wondered if Arthur knew which they were.

To hell with it. Eames would take what he could get on this front, as long as it was with Arthur.

"Wonderful. Shall we pay for our things and head out? It's still early enough that there shouldn't be much trouble getting a table right away."

"Okay." Arthur headed for the till, grabbing a jar of something that looked like Herbs de Provence on his way. Eames followed him up, watching as the clerk put his small assortment of jars into a small plastic bag: tarragon, shallot salt, Herbs de Provence, saffron, and chervil. Not a bad selection for an impulse trip.

They were a few dozen yards away from the store when Eames's hands went to his pockets, patting them down. "Something wrong?" Arthur asked.

"I seem to have left my wallet back at the shop," Eames said sheepishly. "Stay here? I'll just be a moment." He'd scarcely heard Arthur's agreement before he'd turned and sprinted back to the shop, where the clerk gave him a curious look. "Remembered something else I needed," he said apologetically, rushing past her counter and back to where she'd led him when he'd first come in. He grabbed the jar he was looking for, and then a small cardboard box from a display near the register. "Sorry. Just those two. I'll just put them in the bag with the others." He pulled his wallet out from the inside pocket of his jacket, where he'd stored it immediately after paying just a minute or two earlier, and handed over his card for a second time. Just over a minute after re-entering the store, he exited, two new items in with the originals, and his wallet now in his hand. He held it up as he approached Arthur, then tucked it into its regular place in his back pocket. "Musn't lose that. Well. Shall we?"

"Yeah, definitely. Pizza sounds _exactly_ like what I've been wanting."

"Excellent. You should enjoy this place. As a student of the culinary arts, I think you'll appreciate it."

There wasn't much in the way of conversation during the walk, and by the time they were seated at a table in the corner of Mangiamo, Eames was starting to wonder whether the entire meal would be spent in uncomfortable silence, with him trying to engage Arthur in pleasant conversation, and Arthur steadfastly refusing to be engaged. At least it clarified one point – this most certainly did not _feel_ like a date.

Arthur let out a low whistle upon opening the menu once their waiter had gone off to fetch their waters. "When you said 'pizza', I wasn't expecting a place quite so expensive."

"Worth every cent," Eames reassured him. "Don't order with price in mind. Or, if you'd prefer, we can just split one pizza: I'll get what I want on one half, and you can order whatever you like on the other. One pie is quite enough for two, anyway."

"Yeah, I guess that'd work."

"Good. Then let me know when you've figured out what it is you'd like."

"You already know what you want?"

"I _always_ know what I want," Eames said, raising his eyebrows and smirking just a bit. "But feel free to take your time. We could always order a pint when the waiter comes back, if you've not decided by then. Though I feel I should warn you: the beer list is nearly as long as the rest of the menu."

Arthur flipped towards the back of the laminated and bound pages. "Shit. You're not kidding."

"My dear Arthur – I _never_ kid about such serious matters as food or drink."

Making a sound somewhere between a snort and a laugh, Arthur shook his head. "Right." By the time their waiter came back around with glasses of ice water, Arthur had set the menu aside with a sigh. "I guess I'm ready. But you go first."

"If you insist." Eames glanced up at their server. "Do you happen to know if Vincent's still working here?"

The waiter peered over his order pad at him. "Vinny? In the kitchen? Yeah. He's here now, actually."

"Excellent. If it wouldn't be much trouble, would it be possible to ask him if he'd be up for doing something off-menu for an old friend from London?"

Their server raised his eyebrows. "I didn't even know he _lived_ in London. Hold on, I'll go ask."

Arthur just looked at him from across the table and picked up his glass of water. "How do you know one of the chefs here?"

"I used to work with Vincent, back in London. We were both working for some little hole-in-the wall pizzeria near UCL." He shook his head. "A place called 'Tossers', if you can believe it."

Spluttering into his water glass, Arthur just glared at him when he'd recovered. "You're kidding me. You have to be. No one would name their pizza place something like that. Especially in England."

"Honest. You can't make something up like that."

"Sir?" Their server said, appearing back at their table. "You're Eames?" Eames nodded. "Vinny says order whatever you want – he'll make it if he has it in the kitchen. If he catches a break before you leave, he'd like to say hello."

"Excellent. Well, we may as well order, then. As for a drink, I think I'll have the Arrogant Bastard Ale." He caught Arthur scoffing and winked, grinning in response. "What? I happen to have a thing for arrogant bastards, didn't you know? Now, as to the food: I think we're splitting a large pizza right down the middle. On my half, let's do...oh, shrimp, goat's cheese, and red peppers. Arthur, what'll you have?"

Arthur just stared at him, wide-eyed for a moment, much like the look Eames had given the bloke who came to fix the satellite dish over the summer, who talked about Man United's recent season, and how it compared to the one before. It was a look of utter, thrilled shock, the unexpected moment when you realized you'd met someone who shared some secret passion no one else understood. "Never mind the two different halves," he said, looking at Eames instead of at the server. "Same thing on the whole pizza. And I'll do a Theakston's Old Peculier, I guess."

Eames just looked across the table at Arthur as their server left to put in their order. "You enjoy that combination of toppings on pizza? Funny, I've known people who like the shrimp and the goat's cheese, but never all three."

Arthur just looked at him, incredulous. "...But without the red pepper, what connects the shrimp and the goat cheese?"

If Eames weren't already besotted with Arthur before this point, he most certainly would be now. "Yes, exactly! Thank you for understanding."

Cracking a smile, Arthur shrugged, and Eames thought he might actually have caught the hints of a blush at the tops of his ears, though that could have just been a trick of the afternoon light through the nearby window. "You know, after that conversation with the waiter, I'm curious about something."

"And what's that?"

"If you know all these chefs around town, and have worked in all these places, and are _obviously_ skilled enough to work in a kitchen, then why is it, exactly, that you're going to culinary school?"

"Well, the short answer is that it's a leg up on the competition, to be able to brandish that piece of paper, especially with some of the snootier restaurants. But if you want the _real_ answer...?" He smiled a bit when Arthur leaned forwards just enough to indicate his continued curiosity. "That one's a bit complicated, really. I guess you could lay the blame with Yusuf. I got to know him a few years ago, back when I was working at a little Indian restaurant in town, and he was just beginning to teach at Pacifica. Some of the others who worked there would invite him to stay after closing, and we got to know each other. The more he got to know me, got to know my history, the more convinced he was that culinary school would be a helpful career move. You see, he thought that I was moving around so much because I couldn't find a job that satisfied me, or challenged me enough."

Arthur looked at him shrewdly. "But that wasn't it, was it?" He gave a casual nod and a thank-you to their server as he deposited their drinks upon the table, but never looked away from Eames, keeping his gaze steady and unbroken.

"No, not really. It was more..." Funny, he hadn't really had cause to tell this story to many people, at least not in the way Arthur seemed to want to hear it. All of their classmates had their stories as to why they were in culinary school, and Eames's story generally stuck to the theme of using his degree to get into the door of some of Los Angeles's most prominent and lauded restaurants. But there was much more to it, little influences and reasons that were highly personal, or perhaps even silly to those who didn't know him well. And as easy as social interaction and casual acquaintanceships were for him, Eames didn't really ever see the point in delving too deeply into his past. It was much easier, especially for someone who lived such a nomadic life, to keep things light and on the surface. 

So why did it feel so bloody important that Arthur get to see under that, and not just _see_ it, but _understand_ it?

He sighed, trying to find the right words to convey it all, without revealing too much. "It was more that I just didn't feel a strong enough pull to keep me at any one place. I worked one place, I learned some things, and then at some point, I was just as happy to move on, to find something else. It's not that I felt I _didn't_ belong in any one place, because I've always been happy enough where I am." Eames shook his head with a little laugh. "I'm doing a rubbish job explaining what I mean. I suppose, in the end, I'm looking to learn enough to be able to not only pick up new things wherever I end up next, but to teach them, to impart my own sort of knowledge or techniques."

Arthur looked at him steadily for a moment, and then he grinned, just a little. "I don't think you've really told me what made you decide to spend the time and money on culinary school. But you know what? Strange as it sounds, I think I might have an idea about what you mean."

And yes, it did sound strange, but Eames thought that maybe, _somehow_ , Arthur did sort of get the gist of the matter. Maybe not everything about it, but enough to understand that it wasn't boredom, or a desire to try to do absolutely everything, and that the whole thing wasn't some lark, undertaken lightly. He hadn't gone into it figuring it didn't matter if it didn't work out – he had gone into it knowing that it _would_ work out, even if in a way he hadn't anticipated. Because that was how his life was, and had always been. He'd always known he was happiest in a kitchen, preparing food not only for himself, but for other people to enjoy. He had a natural talent there, honed by years of practice. What had started as a chore of sorts back in the days of hopping from home to home had turned into an escape and something fun, where he could find himself. But how did he put all that into words, without sounding like a sob story? He didn't _feel_ like one, and never had. 

Eames supposed the answer was simple: he didn't. Besides, Arthur had seemed to glean onto truths he hadn't said, and for Eames, that was good enough.

"What about you, Arthur? Why did you decide to go to culinary school? You haven't worked in food service before, and you obviously didn't enter straight out of school."

"No, I didn't." He opened his mouth, then seemed to rethink whatever he'd been about to say. After a moment, he cleared his throat and reached for his beer. "I just figured it was the most reliable way to break into working someplace good, since I didn't have years of related experience."

Eames cocked his head and looked at Arthur, who was now running his finger through the condensation on his glass. "And that's the vague-but-acceptable answer. Now, what's the real one?

Arthur made a face at him. "That _is_ the real answer."

But it wasn't, Eames was positive. There was always more to a person's motivations, especially when choosing a new path in life. There were subconscious desires buried deep within and below the conscious ones. Arthur might always seem direct and straight-forwards, but Eames knew there was more to him. But perhaps he'd misjudged this supposed blossoming of their friendship or relationship after all. "Oh. Sorry."

Arthur made a dismissive little gesture. "Forget it."

And once again, they'd reached a point where conversation seemed to take much more effort than it should. It stayed that way until after their food arrived and Arthur took a bite, making a noise that was very much like a moan of pleasure (and, of all things Eames didn't need to be thinking of, given the current state of their non-relationship, Arthur moaning was at the top of the list), rolling his eyes in a way that made Eames think of one of Ariadne's favorite terms – "foodgasm". In fact, Eames was starting to feel just a little bit absurd, being jealous of a slice of pizza. "Enjoying that, are we?" he finally said with a cheeky little grin.

Putting down his slice, Arthur snorted and just looked at him, mouth quirking up on one side. "Forgive me for getting so excited over having something hot and thick in my mouth."

It took a moment to remember how to form words, but finally Eames regained that particular skill. "I'm sorry, did you just...?"

Arthur raised an eyebrow at him. "What? Weren't _you_ the one making stuffing jokes at the fundraiser?"

Well, Arthur had him there. Although... "I seem to recall someone telling me to shut up before I could."

Arthur laughed, those deep dimples reappearing. They did that entirely too rarely. "Well, that was in front of Cobb and our other instructors. This is just the two of us. Unless you're worried about offending our waiter or the other diners."

Eames chuckled. "Hadn't even crossed my mind." It was funny how just fifteen minutes before, Eames had been thinking he'd completely misread Arthur, and now he was thinking it again, only with a very different interpretation. Not once since Ariadne had given him the order to ask Arthur out had Eames thought they might be sitting together for a meal, cracking jokes loaded with innuendo, let alone that Arthur might be the one to start such behavior. And unlike the other night, when there had been tiny, almost questionably-present moments where Eames had thought Arthur might not hate him after all, now Eames was almost positive of it. At the very least, he was open to displaying a sense of humor, even if he wasn't up for sharing anything deeper about himself.

"What would you say," Eames asked later as their waiter cleared away their plates, "to an ice cream before we turn in for the night?" There had been no further dirty jokes or racy innuendo since their food had arrived, but dinner conversation had been surprisingly pleasant, flowing easily in a way Eames wouldn't have thought possible before that night. It wasn't as if he knew Arthur's deepest secrets – and Eames got the feeling that those Arthur did have were guarded quite closely indeed, much as his own were, though in a very different way, and for different reasons – but the things he _did_ know about his classmate had grown exponentially in the last hour. They'd talked music, films (independent, blockbuster, and everything in between), apprised each other of underappreciated places to eat in and around Los Angeles, danced briefly around the subject of sports, having little common ground there, and even discussed TV habits. The last delighted Eames, actually. He wouldn't have thought Arthur the type to lounge in front of the telly, drinking a beer to unwind, but between Arthur's earlier comments in Saito's class and the things he'd said this evening, he was fairly certain Arthur watched an unnatural amount of Food Network programming.

"I think I could go for ice cream. Were you thinking of a place around here?"

"Just down on the pier. Not very far at all."

Arthur nodded. "Sounds good to me." 

This time, conversation remained effortless, as Arthur told him about the project he wanted to do for his final in Yusuf's course. It sounded ambitious, but Arthur seemed quite confident he could get it done. "Well, I could," he lamented as they reached the ice cream place, "if I had the space to do it. The kitchen in my apartment is ridiculously small, and there's virtually no counter room. And there's nowhere on campus where I could store the different parts of it." He ran his fingers through his hair, which was still just a bit mussed from his chef's toque, and looked up at the menu. "Two scoops," he said, once it was his turn. "Buttered cinnamon almond ice cream and pistachio gelato."

Eames fought the urge to make some crack about Arthur's preference for nuts, and placed his own order, musing things over. "You know," Eames said slowly as they headed for an empty spot along the railing over the water. "If you need somewhere to practice or work on your project, I think I might be able to offer some help."

Arthur looked at him, spoon of ice cream already in his mouth. "How?"

"The house where I'm staying is owned by a friend with a love of cooking. The kitchen is absolutely state-of-the-art. I'm talking marble counter tops, an island, table-top industrial mixer, food processors, a rotisserie oven, a proofer, and _two_ convection ovens. Come over and do your work there. There will be no one to bother you except for me, and I'll even stay out of the kitchen, if you like. You can store everything there as well – there's plenty of room in the fridge and freezer, as well as ample counter room. Your things wouldn't be in the way in the slightest, and you wouldn't have to worry about anyone messing with your project."

"And your friend won't mind, either?"

Eames grinned. "He's in Italy for eighteen months. As long as you don't break anything, it's fine. I can call to verify if you'd like, but believe me, he'd let you if he were in town."

"You'd really let me work on my project at your place?" Arthur just looked at him, eyebrows raised in curiosity and skepticism. "I'd really owe you."

Eames quickly nicked a small spoonful of Arthur's gelato and stuck it into his mouth before Arthur could say anything. "There," he said, swallowing. "That'd make us even, I think. And I didn't know they used salted pistachios in that gelato – absolutely heavenly contrast to the creaminess and the sweetness."

Arthur just looked down at his ice cream for a moment, then back up at Eames. "Seriously? That's all you want in repayment?"

With a grin, Eames gave him a little shrug. "Well, the rest of it's already taken care of. It's just nice to have company when out for dinner, and someone to enjoy some scenery with." He gestured out at the waves below them, now a dark blue under the sun that had sunk below the horizon as they'd left the restaurant. The sky itself was dark purple, with just a few remaining streaks of pink. "I think I like the ocean best at night, and I enjoy having someone to hold a conversation with."

Arthur didn't say anything for several moments, even seeming to forget about his ice cream. "It is nice at night, isn't it? I mean, even with the ferris wheel lit up over there, and the lights from the midway and the people shouting.... On this side of the pier, it's quiet. Not nearly so many tourists."

"Exactly." While he loved to watch people, to gather little quirks and elements to mimic later, sometimes it was nice to just enjoy the peace of the waves lapping at the legs of the pier and get away from the sounds of others.

A gust of wind came up over the water and they both shivered, though it didn't stop Eames from enjoying the last bite of his dessert before tossing the empty paper bowl into the nearest bin. When he turned back, Arthur was just a little closer than he had been before, his bowl set down on the edge of the bench behind them. They both looked down at the water, which was quickly turning black, crested with pale foam as each wave broke. "I was really good at my job," Arthur said after a while, so quietly that at first Eames thought he was talking to himself. "But I hated it. When I applied to Pacifica, I wanted something that I could be good at, that didn't make me dread getting up in the mornings." He snorted. "But I'd always wanted to work with food. You want to hear the moment I knew that?"

Eames held his breath for a moment, feeling like this was some sort of tease, or Arthur was going to make some joke, or maybe just rethink the conversation and tell him never mind. But then Arthur looked up and turned towards him, and Eames saw the unexpectedly earnest expression on his face. That decided him. He might never get another opportunity like this. "Yes, I do."

"It's stupid, though. I didn't even tell my parents, when they badgered me about it."

"If it's an important enough moment for you to remember, then it isn't stupid, no matter what it was."

Arthur let out a laugh that was half-sigh. "I was six. My mom hired this girl to babysit – someone a friend had recommended – a child development major in college. She wanted someone who wouldn't sit me in front of the VCR, or treat me like a baby, I think. And this girl – Natalie – didn't. We read, or talked about school, or my favorite toys. She was the coolest babysitter, because she knew all about GI Joe. And sometimes, she was supposed to make me dinner."

Ah, an early crush on the sitter. It was adorable, really, for young Arthur to idolize a girl who treated him maturely.

"And every now and then, when my parents were out really late at a dinner party of something, she'd have her boyfriend Rob come over. My mother would have fired her, I think, if she knew. But she wasn't that kind of babysitter. Her boyfriend would hang out and play with my toys with me while she made dinner, or tell me awesome ghost stories while we all straightened up my room. But the best nights were the ones where he'd come over, and they'd let me sit on the counter in the kitchen, and he'd bake cookies or cupcakes or sticky buns. They were always really good about cleaning up after, so my mother never knew, and he always brought his own supplies. And before bed, if I'd been good, they'd sneak a plastic bag of cookies or an un-iced cupcake into my backpack for the next day and he'd wink and tell me it was our secret." He looked up at Eames. "See? Ridiculous, right? I mean, I was six, and that made me decide I wanted to learn to make those things, and have fun like that in a kitchen, and bake for people who would enjoy it as much as I did."

"That's not ridiculous. It's _adorable_." Arthur's cheeks flushed, and he turned away, muttering about knowing he shouldn't have opened his mouth. Eames caught him by the elbow and tugged him back. "I'm not making fun. Really. It's just the most romantic thing I've heard in a long while. Everyone should have such a story. I don't have one defining moment, you know. Just a gradual accumulation of positive reinforcement, and realizing I always felt most comfortable when I was working with food, letting the rhythm of kitchen work lull me into a peaceful sort of relaxation."

Though his face was still red, Arthur seemed to relax significantly at Eames's words. "Yeah?"

"Absolutely. You might call me a bit of a romantic sod, really, when it comes down to it. I think, when we have those defining moments, those brief bits of absolute clarity, they're worth remembering. Sometimes, in a moment, you just _know_ something, and have to act on it, or you'll always regret it."

"Yeah?" Arthur said again, his voice this time little more than a whisper on the breeze. He seemed so much closer than he'd been before and, dimly, Eames realized he still had a hand on Arthur's elbow. He was looking at Eames intently, as if trying to work out something very important.

"Yes." His heart suddenly seemed to be beating much too loudly, audible even over the sound of the waves crashing against the pier below their feet, and he couldn't help but draw closer to Arthur, who was now turned towards him fully, staring at him as if he held the answers to questions Arthur had been needing resolved, lips parted just slightly, as if he was going to ask another question just as soon as he could figure out which words to use. 

And just as Eames was figuring that this, this right here, might be one of those moments of clarity he'd been talking about, the phone in Arthur's pocket jangled shrilly, startling them both. "Shit. My parking meter's about to expire. And they're not hesitant about giving tickets out here." He laughed shakily, fumbling in his pocket and finally retrieving his phone to silence it. "I'd better get going. I'm parked just south of here, since I started at the aquarium before I realized it was closed. You?"

"North, closer to where we met."

"Did you...did you need a ride to your car?"

"No, it's not really that far," Eames said automatically, kicking himself when he realized he'd just turned down a chance to be sitting next to Arthur for a little while longer. Fuck. 

"Oh. Okay. Then...I guess I'll see you in class."

"Of course. Just, well, let me know when you'd want to work on your project, and we can set aside a day for you to come over and use the kitchen."

Arthur's face looked relieved. "Right. Yeah. Definitely." His phone jangled again, but Arthur was able to silence it much more swiftly this time. "I'd really better go."

There was a moment of awkwardness when it appeared neither of them knew quite how to say goodbye. Eames was the sort to go in for a hug with friends, but he wasn't certain if he and Arthur fell into that category, and in any case, Arthur didn't seem like much of a hugger. Arthur seemed to be aiming for some sort of handshake that Eames didn't catch onto until too late and, in the end, they just settled for an awkward wave, Arthur shoving his hands back in his pockets and walking quickly south. 

Eames watched him go, thinking about the way they'd moved in, closer to one another, and the questioning look on Arthur's face, his lips just slightly parted, like they might almost be inviting him to _do_ something, and the bashful look on his face when he'd offered Eames a ride back to his car. There had almost certainly been a missed opportunity there, and he was going to be able to think of very little else tonight. What would have happened, had Arthur's phone not gone off?

He was deeply afraid he'd never know.

x X x

Never in his life had Arthur been so turned on by yelling.

"What the fuck do you think you're _doing_?" the head chef yelled at someone on the other side of the kitchen. From his spot at the fish station, Arthur could see someone standing over a smoking sauté pan, looking moments away from tears or possibly throwing something at the tyrant hovering over him. Arthur took a moment to look down at his pan-seared scallops to make sure they weren't going to be a victim of the same circumstances.

"And you there! What is it you're doing?"

Arthur's head snapped up to find Gordon Ramsay barreling down on him as if he was moments away from snapping him in half, the vein in his forehead bulging, face bright red. "You don't mean to serve a customer shit like this? Think, why don't you!"

"Yes, chef!" Arthur snapped back, a mix of anger, humiliation, and unexpected arousal filling him. And when Gordon Ramsay looked back at him to issue another directive, Arthur saw it wasn't Chef Ramsay at all in those chef's whites, worked up and so close Arthur could feel his breath. It was Eames.

Which only made the attraction triple. Seeing that level of intensity on Eames's face, for any reason whatsoever, only made Arthur realize just how hot he might be.

Something jabbed him sharply in his side, and Arthur swung around to find Ariadne poking him with the end of a rolling pin. " _Arthur_ , damn it, _snap out of it_!"

And suddenly, Arthur was no longer standing in the middle of dinner service, things cooking and bubbling and searing all around him, people darting around and calling orders while trying not to anger the head chef. Instead, he was sitting at a desk with Ariadne, looking down at the instructor's station with the overhead mirror, where Chef Yusuf was teaching them how to properly temper chocolate. Or he had been, before Arthur had succumbed to sleep-deprived dozing and fantasy. Now, he was just looking critically at Arthur, who muttered an apology and slunk a little further down in his seat, afraid to look up again until Chef Yusuf resumed his demonstration.

"What is wrong with you?" Ariadne muttered. "Why were you muttering about Gordon Ramsay?"

Arthur blushed even harder. She might know about his small crush on Alton Brown, but there was no way in _hell_ he was going to admit to his...thing...for Gordon Ramsay. It was a psychological quirk he was going to take with him to his grave. Even under torture, Arthur was never going to admit that he sort of wanted to _be_ Chef Ramsay, because he was a man who didn't take shit from anyone. But he simply couldn't bring himself to act like Ramsay did. There was no way on earth he could call Ariadne a 'dumb cow' – because first of all, she would probably cry, and Arthur liked her way too much to want to see that. Also, he got the feeling that if he ever tried something like that, she could probably sabotage the structural integrity of his next four-layer cake. "Nothing's wrong with me."

Ariadne just looked at him, eyebrows raised. "Yeah, right. You've been acting weird since last week. You're not getting twitchy about finals already, are you?" She peered at him. "Or is it something else?"

"It's just finals. And I'm not 'twitchy', okay? I'm just...anticipatory."

"Yeah. Whatever. Just try not to doze off in class again, all right? Believe it or not, the lecture material _will_ be on the exam."

"Yeah, okay." 

The problem really had little to do with exams, and had much more to do with the fact that since the evening he and Eames had run into each other out in Santa Monica, Arthur hadn't really been able to stop wondering if there could be something between them. Even just a few weeks ago, he'd have been appalled by such a thought, but between the good time they'd had after the fundraiser (alcohol over-indulgence and resulting extreme hangover aside, that was), and dinner and ice cream a few days after that, Arthur could no longer deny that some part of him wanted to explore that feeling.

Especially since he thought there _might_ have been a moment, out on the pier, when they had been approaching a kiss. And now, of course, he'd never know.

And it was driving him _crazy_.

They hadn't talked about it at all since it had happened, though he and Eames had spoken briefly a handful of times since. The problem was that the very few times they had more than a couple of minutes in the same space, it was in the middle of class, with a handful of classmates around, or when they were doing something that actually required they both pay attention, or when Ariadne would suddenly pop up, wondering what they were talking about, or asking a question about their assignment. And though Arthur did have Eames's phone number still in his contact list, now spelled correctly, he had yet to have the nerve to call or even text – mostly because he had no idea what he'd actually _say_.

Of course, the fact that Eames hadn't bothered to call or text either didn't exactly lend much credence to Arthur's theory that there had almost been something between them. It was quite likely that it had just been so long since he'd gone out with someone, he'd misread some of the signals. Because it wasn't as if he'd never seen Eames flirt before. In fact, it seemed more like a natural attitude or way of communication with him, which only made it _more_ likely Arthur had gotten a bad read on the other evening.

Still, it didn't stop him from obsessing over it.

Arthur's phone buzzed in his pocket, and, carefully, so as not to attract Chef Yusuf's attention a second time, Arthur slid his phone out and looked at his incoming text message: _we still on for saturday at eleven?_

"Who's texting you in the middle of class?" Ariadne whispered. "It's not your mechanic again, is it?"

"No. It's no one. Misdialed text," Arthur said, quickly tapping out a _yes_ before sliding his phone back in his pocket. Though he knew Ariadne might actually be interested to know that two of her friends might have something going on between them, and that she seemed to feel, in general, as if dating might be a way for Arthur to relax and enjoy his life a bit more, he hadn't mentioned this thing with Eames. Mostly, of course, because he wasn't sure there _was_ anything and, dear God, he didn't want to hear about it from her later if he was wrong.

There was another buzz in his pocket a moment later, but Arthur knew better than to pull his phone out again and check, lest Ariadne start badgering him about who was misdialing him more than once. He had two more days until he was supposed to head over to Eames's place to make use of his spacious kitchen and, honestly, he was slightly panicked about it. He was also a bit giddy about getting to use a professionally-designed personal kitchen, but that was sort of overridden by the worry that he wasn't going to be able to keep from giving away the things he was thinking about Eames, or wondering about their relationship, which seemed to have at least evolved to the friendship stage. The text just now might not have mentioned the night in Santa Monica, but just knowing Eames had checked in with him regarding Saturday gave Arthur just a little bit of hope that Eames was...thinking about him, or something.

For the love of God, he was as bad as a thirteen-year-old girl. This most recent dry spell had been _way_ too long. He needed to snap out of this, and quickly. He was twenty-six, on his way to a second (and hopefully, permanent) career, and generally much more self-aware and in control of himself than this. Besides, finals _were_ coming up, and now was not the time to lose focus.

But even telling himself these things didn't stop him from smiling to himself behind his hand when his phone buzzed in his pocket again, reminding him he had an unread text message.

x X x

Quarter to eleven on Saturday morning found Eames very unsuccessfully trying to distract himself from Arthur's impending arrival by lounging on the sofa with the telly on, rather than sitting and staring at the door, waiting for the bell to ring. He had already spent a fair amount of time trying to decide whether it was better to dress in something comfortable and casual, or go with something a bit nicer, that Arthur wouldn't have seen him wearing around campus. He got the feeling that, while he had seen Arthur in things like jeans and T-shirts and jumpers, he was the sort who wouldn't feel out of place in proper shirts, pressed trousers, a jacket, and expensive shoes. He had the lines for that kind of look, slim but fit, and Eames had lost a good ten minutes to just fantasizing about that very thing. In the end, he had opted for jeans, trainers, and a light blue T-shirt, fitted but comfortable enough to allow for easy movement. That way, he hoped, he wouldn't look as if he were trying to impress Arthur too hard. Just a casual day off at home.

He did, however, add a dab of cologne, because it never hurt to smell good, and he didn't have many opportunities to wear it on school days, as he abstained whenever he was going to be in the kitchen, so as not to interfere with the smells of the food that was being prepared. As Arthur would mostly be decorating and not working with heavy spices or other scented indicators of cooking earmarks, Eames felt okay in deviating from his personal rule, just this once.

The bell rang precisely at eleven, just as Eames had guessed it would, because there was nothing about Arthur that suggested he would be anything other than rigidly punctual. He did wonder exactly what Arthur's previous occupation had been. Something that utilized research, he knew that much, but beyond that, he had no details. Eames would have guessed military, but that didn't seem quite right, given the few other details he had been able to pick up on. Yet another mystery he might never solve.

When Eames finally made it to the front door, opening it wide and favoring Arthur with a wide smile, he saw that while Arthur had switched his houndstooth trousers for blue jeans, he was still wearing a chef's coat over what looked like a thin white undershirt, a leather jacket on top of that. Ah, no surprise, really. He had a bag slung over one shoulder, not his usual messenger bag, but something larger and apparently full. "You didn't bring everything you'd need, did you? I told you I'd have plenty of the basics, I thought."

Arthur smiled hesitantly. "You did. I just have my cake decorating tools, and some flavor extracts and oils. And gel food colors. And some support boards. And...well, you get the idea."

Eames chuckled. "Yes. Well, you did say you were aiming a bit high with your concept for this project, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Did you want the basic tour before you get settled into the kitchen?" He moved aside out of the doorway and gestured to the entryway. "You could have the extended tour later, if you like."

Arthur looked past him and into the room with marble floors, high ceilings, and the grand staircase. "Okay, I knew, once you said 'Beverly Hills', that this was going to be a nice place, and the fact that I had to check in with a guard at the gate outside the community sort of confirmed that, but holy shit. I didn't realize your friend was quite so well-off."

Eames laughed. "Well, he started out with a fair amount of family money, and managed to expand it quite a bit through some wise investments in the restaurant industry. Luckily, house aside, it hasn't gone to his head much. But it does make living here alone, while he's out of the country, a bit more lonely. You can feel a bit small in a place like this."

Arthur grinned. "Do you have maps on the walls, for guests who get lost on their way to the bathroom?"

"Oh no," Eames said, affecting a horrified expression. "Nothing so primitive. We track you via GPS, so we can direct you back over the speaker system."

"Funny," Arthur said, and there was none of that bitter, sarcastic tone Eames had grown used to. "Yeah, a tour'd be cool, if you don't mind. I mean, I'll probably be stuck in the kitchen all day, but it would be nice to know where I'm headed if I need the bathroom or something."

"Very well then," Eames said, gesturing Arthur inside. "Follow me, and you'll soon see why I said it wouldn't be an imposition to have you working here." He led Arthur around the main floor, pointing out the loo, the larger bathrooms, the recreation room, and the living room, wondering if there was a way he could ask Arthur if he wanted to see the upstairs _without_ sounding like he was propositioning him. In the end, he skipped the question and just led him into the kitchen. "Disposal there, in that sink. Gas range there, convection ovens there and there. That one there has a rack that rotates. If you're doing any baking, I recommend that one. Mixer, proof box, pantry of tools and containers. Dry goods in that pantry, there, except the things in the larger bins underneath the main counter, just like at school. And the fridge, of course. Anything in there's at your disposal. Any questions?"

"Does your friend run a small restaurant out of his kitchen, or what?"

Eames chuckled. "No. When he's living here, he does throw a few parties, prepping everything in-house. And he does some catering for a few select clients. And every now and then, he teaches classes here to groups of people. Other than that, it doesn't get much use. There's a smaller kitchen tucked away, but I've been using this one. It's more convenient to the living room and the recreation room." Arthur was still standing next to the marble island, just sort of gaping at everything. "Feel free to set up wherever you feel comfortable. There's a switch for the radio or CD player tucked back near the microwave, or an iPod dock. Speakers built into the walls."

"You're kidding me."

"Niko does not joke about having access to music in the kitchen, and, thus, neither do I," Eames said seriously. "If you don't have anything, you're welcome to browse my selection or flip through the dials to find something on the radio."

"Thanks. So. Um. I brought styrofoam rounds, but if it wouldn't be a problem, I'd prefer to bake a small batch and use those."

Eames spread his arms out, gesturing to their surroundings. "No problem at all, as long as you don't mind running a load of dishes after."

Arthur grinned. "I think I could handle that. Um. Where are all the ingredients again?" he asked sheepishly. "I sort of lost track while I was busy drooling over the equipment."

He was rather adorable when he joked, Eames mused, and the dimples only added to the effect. "Well, if you like, I'll pull out the dry goods, and you can get what you need from the fridge. Flour and sugar are there, in those bins. Anything else from the pantry?"

"Baking powder," Arthur said, pulling a sheet of paper from the front pocket of his pack. "I'm pretty sure I brought my vanilla extract, if you're low on it here. Oh, and vegetable oil, though I can sub extra butter, if I need to."

Eames pulled a stack of stainless steel bowls out of one pantry, along with the adjustable scale, and set them on the main counter. Ducking into the pantry for a moment, he emerged with a container of baking powder, a half-gallon of oil, and a nearly-full gallon of vanilla extract. "I'm fairly certain we're fine on the vanilla," he said with a smirk as Arthur walked over to the fridge and pulled the main door open.

"Oh. My. God," was the only answer he got from Arthur, who had frozen, hand still on the handle of the open door. Eames was about to ask him what was wrong, but Arthur looked over his shoulder and gave Eames an incredulous look. "You."

"What?"

"You are _never_ allowed to tease me about my OCD _ever again_." He looked back into the fridge and Eames suddenly connected Arthur's statements with what he was looking at.

"Wait, now, Arthur, that's not what it looks like–"

"Really? Because it looks like you have very neatly organized clear plastic containers of perfectly-cut vegetables. Green peppers, red peppers, broccoli florettes, carrots, mushrooms, _celery_... Fuck, Eames, do you work for a Chinese restaurant in your spare time?"

"No!" Eames said, feeling his face flush a little. "I just... look, I really enjoy stir-fries and sautéed vegetables with my meals. And you know how some people like to keep themselves occupied when they're stressed or thinking by knitting, or doing crosswords, or playing an instrument or even smoking?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"Well, I cook. Specifically, I do prep work, because it's soothing." He could feel the flush in his cheeks. "Old, deep-seated habit, I suppose. Besides, it means I don't have to waste time prepping things when I get home from classes and need to eat something."

Arthur just looked at him with his eyebrows raised for a moment, before reaching in to the fridge and pulling out a carton of eggs and two pounds of butter. "I..." He cleared his throat. "I, um, sort of grow herbs on the deck of my apartment, and I've been known to spend some time pruning them when I'm trying to think through things," he muttered, face going as pink as Eames's felt. He looked at the things Eames had set out, putting the eggs next to the stack of bowls. "Wow, so you weren't kidding about having enough vanilla."

"Of course not." It took him just a moment to realize that Arthur had once again shared something personal about himself, and something inside his chest seemed to expand and fill him. They had definitely crossed over into new territory the other night, even if neither of them had yet talked about it. Eames still couldn't figure out whether this new territory was simply friendship or something more. He knew which he _wanted_ it to be, of course, but honestly, he'd settle for either. It would probably be best not to push things, anyway, lest Arthur retreat back behind that little wall he kept around himself.

"So," he said after a moment, watching Arthur unpack some of his things onto the far end of the counter before turning back to scan over the recipe he'd brought with him. "You'll probably be more comfortable if I left you alone while you baked. I should probably just go and find something to watch..."

"No," Arthur said absently, running his finger down his hand-written recipe. "Stay. It's nice to have someone to talk to while I do this. Usually, it's Ariadne. I got kind of used to it."

"Ah, yes, well, I'm no Ariadne, I'm afraid."

Arthur smirked, placed a bowl atop the scale, and turned the dial until he'd tared it back to zero. "Good. Then you won't rant to me about how unfair it is for that Duff guy to charge hundreds of dollars for a cake that's only sixty percent edible."

"She really does have something against those shows, doesn't she?"

"Yes. I take it you've not been on the receiving end of a series of drunkenly ranting texts about this very subject?"

"I can't say that I have." The rants he usually got by way of text message were more along the lines of her frustration with Fischer's assignments, or prodding and asking if he'd managed to ask Arthur out yet, or complaining that she was never going to feel like she could give orders in the kitchen, because she was too young or too small to be taken seriously by some of the bigger blokes. 

"Well, they're quite entertaining, to be honest. I should show you some of them later." He measured out two and a half pounds of sugar and emptied it into the mixer, then looked around for a moment. "If I wanted to soften some butter...?"

"Here." Eames moved around Arthur's other side and reached down below him to pull out a large drawer that held a few plastic mixing bowls, handing him one. He didn't realize just how close they were until his arm brushed Arthur's hip as he closed the door, and for a moment, they both seemed to pause, not breathing. "Use this and microwave it on the low setting," Eames finally said, clearing his throat. "Full pound?" Arthur nodded. "Seventy seconds, then."

"Thanks."

"Of course." Eames moved back out of the way, hopping up to perch on one of the counters where he could watch and not impede Arthur's progress. For a split second, he'd been reminded of that moment on the pier, when it felt like they'd been moments away from some further connection before the moment had been ruined, and he thought Arthur might also have thought back to that moment. But even if he had, neither of them had done anything. Eames sighed. He wanted Arthur and had for quite a while now, but he didn't quite know how to bring it up, or effect that course of action. And now, while Arthur was working on something so important to him, was almost certainly the worst time to try something, in any case.

So instead, he sat there for nearly an hour, just watching Arthur work, measuring ingredients, mixing the dry items together in one bowl, using a wire whisk until everything was incorporated, creaming the butter and sugar together in the mixer before adding the eggs and then the vanilla and a splash of almond. They kept up fairly steady conversation about nothing of any consequence – mostly about films they had seen recently, and programs and books those films reminded them of, and films _those_ things reminded them of, until Arthur had popped four sizes of cake rounds into the oven and set the timer for the smallest of them. 

Contrary to his earlier statement, Eames found himself stepping in and washing Arthur's dishes as he finished with each one, little more than force of habit, until Arthur caught him doing it and snickered. "I thought I was doing my own dishes."

Eames looked down at the mixing bowl, which was now clean and needed only to be left to dry. "So did I. Looks like you benefit from my years of hating to have dishes pile up. Hm."

"I could have done those, you know," Arthur told him, head tilted just a little.

"Yes, well, I suppose this way, you're now able to get started right away on making your icings. Did you want any help?"

"Nah," Arthur said, pulling several bags of miniature marshmallows from his pack. "Just conversation's good." He looked around again. "Okay, do you have something I can microwave _these_ in? Or a big pot I can use on the stove?"

Eames just goggled slightly. "And just what are you doing with those? Making a twenty-gallon vat of cocoa? Please tell me it's not those marshmallow rice squares."

"Hey, don't malign Rice Krispy Treats, okay? And no, it's not for that. I'm making fondant."

"Isn't that just icing sugar, corn syrup, and shortening?" Eames asked, confused. It was pretty to look at, he had to admit, but it wasn't exactly flavorful or appetizing.

"Usually. But this is a marshmallow fondant. It tastes ten times better – people will usually eat it, instead of just peeling it off."

"Well, now _this_ I have to experience for myself."

Arthur laughed. "Fine. I'll have you try some of the leftovers with some of the cake scraps later. You can judge for yourself."

By the time Arthur had a good-sized batch of white fondant sitting in his bowl, his face was pink and he was looking a bit over-exerted. He had icing sugar up to the edge of his sleeves, just below his elbows, a little bit of shortening on his upper sleeve, where it had landed when Arthur had accidentally flung it, trying to remove it from the canister with a rubber spatula, and even a small white smear of icing sugar across one cheekbone. "There," he said, out of breath. "I need to wrap that and let it sit for a few hours. I need to make some buttercream, too. But first–"

"First, you need a wash?"

"Yeah. Definitely."

Eames grinned. "Remember where the bathrooms are?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"Good. Go and have a wash. I'm going to make us some food."

"You don't need–"

"Arthur. It's after two. It's time for lunch. Nothing special, I'm afraid. Just some roast beef sandwiches, because it's what I have on hand, and I don't want to be in your way."

Arthur snorted. "In _this_ kitchen? You'd actually have to try." He paused. "Okay, so you're right – food does sound good. Thanks. I'll be right back."

"If you're not, I'll activate your GPS and guide you back."

Arthur did return shortly, and they sat in the living room, eating in front of the TV until Arthur declared it time to return to work. "Hold on," Eames said, taking his plate. "I have something for you."

"For my project? I think I have everything I need..."

"No. Not for your cake. For _you_." He opened up a small drawer in the side table, next to the sofa, and removed a small plastic bag. "I'd meant to give this to you before we parted on the pier. Here."

Arthur opened the bag and peered inside. "This is from that spice shop. A mill and some of that stuff you came in looking for, right? The stuff that goes in a lot of Greek baked goods?"

"Yes. Mahlepi. I thought you might like to try it."

Arthur stared at the two items for a moment, then looked up at Eames, a stunned expression on his face. "Thanks. Really." He offered a smile that made Eames want to lean in and kiss him, but he resisted, lest this afternoon turn awkward. "Let me just put this away before I start working again." He headed for the kitchen, carefully rewrapping the plastic bag around the jar of mahlepi and the small mill Eames had bought to accompany it.

And though Eames knew Arthur didn't really need his help, he followed along after, because he was enjoying the company just as much as Arthur was, if not more. And while he occasionally located things around the kitchen, mostly he just sat back and watched Arthur move around, slightly amazed by how comfortably Arthur worked here, in unfamiliar surroundings. He got the feeling that for all Arthur's general skill in the kitchen during Cobb's course, or even Mal's, or his easy recall in Saito's, this was where Arthur belonged, baking, decorating, and generally perfecting sweets. Everything just seemed to flow around him, like a well-choreographed routine, and Arthur looked relaxed in a way he never did in Cobb's class, even when he was concentrating.

Until, that was, his project began to give him problems.

"God _damn_ it," he muttered, tossing his small spatula onto the counter. He sighed harshly and squeezed his eyes closed. "I can't fucking deal with this right now. I swear to God, I'm ready to throw this thing on the floor."

Without thinking about it, Eames was off his perch on the counter and crossing over to where Arthur stood, bracing himself against the counter, knuckles white like he was trying to keep from tossing the cake to the floor, just as he'd said. "Hey," he said soothingly, his hand coming up to rub lightly between Arthur's hunched shoulders. It was a move he'd have done for Ariadne, or any of his friends, really: a simple gesture of comfort meant to calm someone down; he didn't even think about it as he worked the heel of his hand up and down Arthur's upper spine. "Take a deep breath and step away from the cake."

"This stupid seam will just _not_ stop folding!" Arthur exclaimed, and suddenly some of the rock-hard tension seemed to shift into something that was more hopelessness and defeat instead of anger, and he drooped, head hanging. "Why can't I get this right?"

"You just need a break," Eames said, keeping his voice light as he murmured in Arthur's ear, hand still rubbing between his shoulder blades. And then the loose defeat in Arthur's posture was once again changed, this time into something tight that wasn't anger. Eames was suddenly _very_ aware of his hand, now resting, hesitant and light, between Arthur's shoulders, and he knew that Arthur was, too.

To say that the tension between them was apparent would be a bit of an understatement.

Eames pulled away quickly, first removing his hand and then straightening up and taking a step backwards, before he could do something that upset Arthur in a different way – something stupid like touch him as if they were more familiar than they were, or offer a comforting touch when none had been invited. Fuck. He'd been trying to keep from doing something stupid, and here he'd gone and done just that. There was no denying Arthur had noticed, given the way he'd gone rigid and stopped breathing, tense as if just waiting for Eames to get away from him.

"Sorry," Eames said, backpedaling with his words just as quickly as he was doing physically, trying to reestablish the distance between them that had been there just moments before as Arthur stiffly turned, staring at him like he'd never seen him before. "I just –"

One of Arthur's arms reached out and, instead of pushing Eames away, or even striking at him, which was what Eames half-expected in the panicky part of his mind that said he'd managed to ruin a perfectly good evening of increasingly easy friendship, his hand closed around Eames's wrist, keeping him from going any further.

Arthur's face was flushed, no longer with frustration at the difficulties his project was presenting, but with some other expression that sent Eames's mind reeling. With a sharp tug, he'd pulled Eames back into him, and then Arthur's mouth was pressed against his, lips parting just slightly, tongue giving a teasing little flick at Eames's lower lip until Eames let out a shaky little sigh and reached up with one hand to thread his fingers through Arthur's hair, pulling him closer.

Arthur moaned softly into his mouth, and that was all it took for Eames to forget about every damned thing that _wasn't_ the feel of Arthur's body pressed up against his; the taste of him, accented just a bit by the sugar on his tongue; the small sounds of need and pleasure he was making as Eames sucked lightly on the tip of his tongue or his lower lip, trying to find a way to get closer. He didn't know what he'd been expecting, but it hadn't been this, with Arthur snogging him so desperately, fingers clasped behind Eames's neck and thumb along his jaw. Eames pulled away just enough to be able to tilt his head down, nipping at Arthur's neck, delighting in the full-body shudder and thickly muttered "oh _God_ " as Eames licked at the pounding vein in Arthur's neck.

"You smell so fucking _good_ , it's not even fair," Arthur panted in his ear a few moments later, finally pulling back and looking up at Eames hungrily. "I've been trying to figure out that scent all semester."

Eames raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Have you now?" If he'd known that, he might have tossed his no-cologne-on-kitchen-days rule right out the window.

"Yes, you bastard."

"Is that the only reason we're standing here in my kitchen with your leg wrapped around my waist and my hand around your back?"

"No," Arthur said, shaking his head. "But it sure as fuck doesn't hurt. Now shut up." He tugged Eames down by a handful of his T-shirt, sliding his hand underneath the material and across Eames's chest.

"Your hand's sticky," Eames started to say, and then realized how foolish it was to complain right now. "You know what? Never mind. This place has a shower. Carry on."

It was entirely unfair that Arthur had access to his body, but was still confined within his uniform. He dipped his head forwards again, relishing the feel of Arthur's hot mouth against his, the slickness of his tongue and the force of his kisses as he worked to free Arthur from his chef's coat. He finally got it shoved to the floor, the thermometer from Arthur's shoulder pocket rolling away somewhere Eames didn't really care about right now. Uniform gone, Eames could smell hints of deodorant and soap mixed with Arthur's sweat, and, with a low growl, he yanked Arthur's shirt over his head and sent it the way of the chef's coat.

"This isn't even _close_ to sanitary," Arthur murmured, though that didn't stop him from shifting away from his project and leaning back against the counter, pulling Eames down with him, and kissing him deeply.

"So we'll sanitize everything later," Eames said with a snort. "Unless you want to stop this right now and get back to work?"? He accented the question with a light nip at Arthur's earlobe.

As it turned out, even Arthur could be persuaded to put his studies on hold for a bit.

x X x

It had only taken Arthur's brain a few moments to catch up to what the rest of him already seemed to know once Eames had moved across the room to calm him down: he wanted Eames, and he was actually pretty sure the feeling went both ways.

And like many things in Arthur's life, once his brain had decided on a path or course of action, it didn't bother with letting him overthink the decision. It simply shut off all criticism and related feedback and focused on getting to the task at hand, which, in this case, was kissing Eames so hard they both lost IQ points.

And _fuck_ , Eames was a good kisser.

He'd been wearing that cologne that Arthur loved, which had actually been a form of mild torture at first. Arthur had caught a whiff of it during the tour of the lower floor, and he'd inhaled deeply and tried not to wonder just how far Eames's bedroom might be from where they were standing, and if he could ask to see it without sounding like he'd come over for sex. Which he hadn't, of course. He just couldn't think of a way to phrase it that made that clear without being awkward. Arthur had caught the scent again later as Eames squeezed between him and the cupboard at Arthur's hip to hand him a bowl, and again as Eames had handed over a plate containing a sandwich and some sliced fruit – likely from one of the endearingly organized plastic storage containers in the refrigerator. 

Arthur had caught it again as he'd been about to have a complete and total meltdown over the fucking fondant, but that wasn't what had given his brain the go-ahead to act on the attraction he'd been suppressing. It had been Eames's hand on his back, rubbing so soothingly, as if they both knew it belonged there, that had been the final catalyst for Arthur's epiphany. He generally hated gestures like that from people he didn't know exceptionally well, and the realization that he _didn't_ mind it from Eames had been a little bit of a shock. But the familiar way Eames rubbed his hand against Arthur's shoulders, trying to ease away some of the tension that had gathered there, had made Arthur very, very aware that there might be incredible potential between them. And so he'd gone for it. And hadn't exactly gotten a lot of resistance, which was a relief.

In fact, given the feeling of Eames's cock, hard and straining against his jeans, pressing into Arthur's hip as they kissed until Arthur was dizzy, there was very little Arthur'd had to worry about.

"This isn't even _close_ to sanitary," he managed, once Eames had fully divested him of his chef's coat and undershirt. Some very tiny voice in the back of his head said that the Department of Health would most certainly not approve of things like this going on in a professional kitchen.

"So we'll sanitize everything later," Eames replied. "Unless you want to stop this right now and get back to work?" He bit lightly at Arthur's earlobe, then nudged Arthur's head to the side, placing damp, open-mouthed kisses down Arthur's neck to his collarbone, which received a little nip, then a brief lick. Suddenly, the little voice was making allowances for this being a home kitchen instead of a professional one, and the fact that they weren't actually pressed up against the same counter he'd been working on, as this one had no edible items on it whatsoever. 

Unless you counted Eames, who might very well fall into the "edible" category after all.

"Fuck it," Arthur said, shivering when Eames ran a hand down his chest and hooked two fingers into the waistband of his jeans. "The fondant can dry out, for all I care. I can always make more later."

Eames's eyes gleamed. "That's the spirit."

There was something absolutely fitting about their first kiss taking place here in a kitchen. It might not have had the same calm, romantic feel the pier had had the other night, with a breeze blowing around them and the distant sounds of people having fun in the amusement park area, but Arthur thought this might actually be better in some way. It just felt _right_. 

Still, he didn't complain when Eames led him out of the kitchen, toeing off his shoes and waiting for Arthur to do the same and even smirking a bit with those enticingly plump lips (which, yes, he'd been right in comparing to berries before, stupid as it sounded) when Arthur paused to run his hands under the sink to remove the last of the traces of fondant and shortening. Eames sat heavily on the couch, pulling Arthur down with him and giving a little moan when Arthur readjusted his position, straddling Eames's lap, both knees sunk into the couch cushions as he leaned forwards to kiss him again, moving his hips just enough to rub up against the bulge in Eames's jeans.

"Bloody tease," Eames groaned, eyes squeezing shut.

"Who says I'm teasing?" Arthur asked, voice low and rough. He worked a hand down between them and palmed Eames's erection through his jeans, a thrill going through him when Eames bucked into his hand. He hadn't planned this at all, had barely even planned that first kiss, but oh _God_ , he wanted this. It wasn't even his own release he wanted, so much as he just wanted Eames to be _his_ , some trophy he hadn't even known he was trying for.

"What do y–" Eames began, before Arthur cut him off with another kiss, carefully undoing the button and zipper of his jeans and sliding off his lap until his knees were on the floor. "Fuck, Arthur, you don't have to–"

"Are you saying you don't want to?" Arthur asked, eyebrows raised. He was pretty sure by this point it wouldn't be a flat-out rejection, if Eames wanted to put a stop to things, but more like a hold or pause button. And if that's what he wanted, Arthur could deal with that easily enough. It wasn't like he made a habit of jumping into a sexual relationship right off the bat. In fact, this would sort of be a first.

"No, I'm not saying _that_ –"

"Good. Because one thing you'll learn about me, Eames, is that I don't make offers I don't want to deliver on." And with a smirk, he pulled down the waistband of Eames's boxer-briefs and licked lightly at the head of Eames's cock.

"Arthur, darling, you just might be the death of me," Eames murmured, shuddering as Arthur took him into his mouth. Arthur chuckled. It was too bad it was so difficult to give an effective blow job while smiling.

There was an immense feeling of satisfaction in seeing (and feeling, and especially _hearing_ ) Eames so turned on by Arthur's doing, and by the time he finally came with a stilted, tight warning, Arthur was exceptionally proud of himself.

"Months of playing hard to get," Eames murmured as he tugged Arthur back onto the couch, pulling him down for a light kiss, "and this is what awaits?"

Arthur laughed. "Well, for _you_. And I don't 'play' hard to get."

"Well, you don't make it easy," Eames said, smirking, face and chest flushed. "And to think, I'd almost given up trying."

"Lucky for us both, you didn't," Arthur smirked back.

"I do believe I've just come out of the deal better. Although, I _am_ a firm believer in reciprocity, you know." He grinned at Arthur, raising his eyebrows.

Arthur gave a little snort. "You can deliver on that later," he said, leaning down for one more kiss, this one much slower and more relaxed than their earlier ones. "For right now, I think I could actually stand to look at that cake again and not throw it against the wall."

Eames groaned. "Arthur, sometimes your studiousness astounds me."

By the time Arthur finally left that evening, he had a cake nearly flawlessly covered in fondant sitting in one corner of the kitchen, two dozen fondant flowers sitting on a cooling rack and beginning to dry, and a new lovebite he hoped the collar of his chef's coat would cover. He was still in something like shock, or maybe awe, over the developments the day had brought, but he knew it was only the culmination of something that had been building under the surface for quite a while, even if he'd remained in denial about it for so long. He went to bed that night thinking of the shocked look on Eames's face when Arthur had pulled him in for that first kiss, and woke the next morning seeing that soft, surprised, and still somewhat disbelieving expression that Eames had worn as he kissed Arthur a gentle goodnight out on the front porch.

And as the next week passed, Arthur found himself thinking of little else but Eames, a topic of thought that was not much diminished by a late-night meeting for Greek food and drinks, or lunch together in the cafeteria the three days Ariadne was out with the flu, or kisses stolen in between classes, ducked into corners of nearly-empty hallways. 

But for as much as he enjoyed the feeling, he _did_ worry that perhaps it was wreaking havoc on his concentration. He supposed the first sign was during the pre-final exam quiz Chef Cobb gave them, when, instead of being one of the first students to hand in his paper, he was second-to-last, because he kept losing track of what each question was asking, focusing instead on the way Eames played with the end of the pen in his mouth as he thought about his own answers. A quick review of the answers after the last quiz had been handed in showed that Arthur had missed an easy question he should have known, and he shook himself, promising himself that he would regain focus, especially this close to finals.

"You haven't told Ariadne about us, either, have you?" Eames asked him on Friday as they stood around the corner from Chef Yusuf's classroom, keeping an eye out for Ariadne or anyone else they knew. "Why not?"

Arthur shrugged. "At first, I didn't say anything because I was afraid I was wrong about the signals I was getting, and didn't want to deal with her teasing. And after I figured out that wasn't a problem," he grinned, placing a light, teasing kiss on Eames's jaw, "I just wanted to have something that was just for us, without any added pressure."

Eames chuckled. "You have no idea what kind of added pressure that girl can give. But seriously, one of us should mention this soon, or she's going to murder us for keeping her in the dark. Well, she might maim you. She's _definitely_ going to murder _me_ for keeping the secret." He gave Arthur a long, surprisingly sweet kiss, his hand resting lightly under Arthur's chin. "Ah, look, here she comes. Soon, yes?"

"Yeah, okay." Arthur nodded and headed for the door to the Cakes and Confections classroom, trying not to grin over the curious expression on Ariadne's face. "Feeling better?"

"Well, I can stand without passing out, so I'm taking that as a good sign," she said dismissively. "Was that Eames you were just talking to?"

"Huh? Oh. Yeah."

"What about?"

"Nothing."

Ariadne narrowed her eyes at him. "You're not telling me something."

Arthur sighed and rolled his eyes. "DayQuil makes you paranoid. Come on, let's start getting our station together."

"Um, Arthur?" Ariadne asked an hour later as he was finishing up their butter brown sugar glaze. He turned to see her staring down at the half-sheet of cake she'd pulled from the oven a few minutes ago, patting the top cautiously. "What happened?"

"What do you mean, 'what happened'?" He set the pan down on their table and stood at her side, peering down at the still-warm cake. It didn't look like nearly enough cake, and a couple of experimental pats and one good poke later, he knew why. "Fuck me."

"How did you do this?" Ariadne asked, brow furrowed. "What would have made this stuff so...dense?"

"I forgot the baking powder," Arthur growled. "Damn it. Now the whole thing's fucked."

"Hey, don't snap at me," Ariadne said, giving him a look. "I'm sick, and I got my stuff done okay." She sighed. "Sorry. I'm kind of bitchy when I don't feel well."

"No," Arthur said, gritting his teeth. "You're right. I fucked it up because I was..." he sighed harshly. "I was distracted, thinking about something else."

"Well, you'd better get un-distracted soon," Ariadne said, poking at the flat brick of cake some more. "Finals start on Monday. This hit to our grade won't be too bad, because, frankly, we kick ass in this class, but you know it'll hurt to do something like this in Cobb's final. You can't just–" She stopped suddenly as Chef Yusuf approached their station. "Good morning, chef."

"Glad to see you're feeling better," he said with a small smile which faded when he looked down at their half-sheet tray. "Unfortunately, it doesn't look like I can say the same for today's project." He shook his head. "That's really quite a shame, as I've become used to such excellent work from you two." He looked at the cake and sighed. "I'll be coming around again in an hour to give you your evaluation."

"Fuck," Arthur muttered, slamming his hand against the table and making Ariadne jump. "Damn it, if he hadn't..."

"If who hadn't what?"

"Never mind," he huffed. He was pissed at himself, really, because he'd sworn to himself he wouldn't let this happen, and it had, anyway. If he couldn't deal with this new distraction, no matter how pleasant of a distraction it was, there was really only one thing he could do to mitigate the damage.

By the time class was over and Arthur had received the first D in his history, he was so worked up that he could barely handle being in his own skin. So when Eames greeted him near the parking garage with a smile that faded into a concerned "what's wrong?", Arthur couldn't hold it in any more. "This," he snapped, holding out his evaluation. "This is what's wrong."

Eames scanned the piece of paper and looked back up at Arthur, incredulous. "What happened?"

"I fucking forgot the baking powder in the recipe, that's what happened."

"Oh. Well, everyone's bound to–"

"No," Arthur spat, aware this was getting out of control but unable to help himself. "Not me. It's your fault, you know."

" _My_ fault? And just how do you arrive at that conclusion?" Eames asked, eyebrows raised.

"If you hadn't been..." Arthur started, then sighed and ran his hands through his hair. "You know what? You're right. It's _not_ your fault; it's mine. I let myself get distracted."

"What do you mean, 'distracted'?"

Arthur sighed, closing his eyes. "By you. By us. I've been so busy focusing on this new thing that I haven't paid any attention to anything else. I can't do this right now, I really can't." He opened his eyes and looked directly at Eames. "This whole thing, with us? It has to stop. It doesn't matter how much I _want_ to; I just can't right now. I need to back away from this, get my head together, and figure out what's important." He waited for a response.

It took a few moments, but finally Eames said something. "If that's what you want," he said stiffly, adjusting the backpack on his shoulder. "Fine." He handed Arthur back his evaluation, but didn't meet his eyes. "I suppose that means plans for this evening are off. I'll see you in class on Monday, for Cobb's exam." And without another look back, he turned and strode away, leaving Arthur standing there, anger ebbing away and giving way to something much worse: 

Regret.

x X x

Given how Arthur had been for the first few months they'd known each other, Eames supposed he really shouldn't be surprised things had taken such a drastic turn so quickly. What the hell had made him think that things with Arthur had even a snowball's chance in hell of working out, that Arthur would be okay with being open and sharing things and loosening up? Eames should have known from the very beginning that the whole endeavor was fated to be an utter disaster, and going after Arthur, in any capacity, was just asking for trouble.

But no matter how many times Eames told himself those things, beating himself up mentally for letting himself get so invested in Arthur and then just accepting his decision to back things up or end them or whatever he'd actually decided, he couldn't help feeling that he had been right, and it was Arthur who was wrong. 

True, it had only been a week, but things had seemed to be going so well up until the very moment Arthur had gone ballistic on him. Eames had spent the last week feeling lighter than he had in a _very_ long time, positive he'd found the place where he belonged, that urge to keep searching gone for now, content with what he had and anxious to explore it further, the good and the bad, until he knew the corners and contours of it by feel alone. The fact that he and Arthur had seemed to have such amazing physical chemistry had simply been a bonus, and not one he'd taken lightly. They hadn't done anything more risqué than a few long snogging sessions since the day Arthur had come over to work on his project and very unexpectedly given Eames a fantastic blow job out of nowhere, but really, it had just served to make Eames feel that when they finally _did_ get around to doing more than snogging and a bit of light groping, it would only be all the better.

Now, of course, that was never going to happen.

And yet, Eames couldn't quite shake the feeling that there might be a shred of hope left somewhere in the mess of what Arthur had left him with. Never once had he said he didn't _want_ what they had – only that he couldn't _do_ it. Still. the end result was the same in any case, and Eames was not only disappointed and generally upset, but _hurt_ , though he wasn't going to let Arthur see that, if he could help it. It was part of the reason he was so dreading Monday morning – because however well he could act and mimic when the moment called for it, he wasn't certain he could keep Arthur from seeing just how much it hurt to be tossed aside as if he were a distraction and not even a possible priority or thing of any worth, whatsoever. 

"Look," he muttered to himself outside the door to the classroom. "Just focus on your own work and leave Arthur the hell alone, like he wants." Saying it out loud made it seem more authoritative, almost like something he could do. He managed to get towards the edge of the classroom, not far from where the knives and cutting boards were kept, without acknowledging Arthur at all, which was really a fair bit of success, all things considered.

"You have thirty minutes to get started," Cobb finally said, having given them all a review of the evaluation process, including when they were dismissed and when they could expect to have their results. Turning to glance at the clock, Eames caught a glimpse of Arthur from across the room. Even from this distance, Eames could see how absolutely _awful_ he looked. There were dark circles under his eyes, his face was pale, and his posture, normally so straight and confident, was drooping and listless. He looked like a man defeated before he'd even begun, and it made Eames want to go over and give the prickly bastard a hug or cuddle him, stupid as that was. He wouldn't do that, especially given what Arthur had decided on Friday. 

But he couldn't do _nothing_.

With a sigh, Eames crossed over to the shelving units and picked up a sixth-pan from the shelf above Arthur's head, grazing Arthur's arm with his elbow. "Hey," he murmured softly in Arthur's ear as they were pressed in around by a dozen other students. "You've got this. I know you do. You'll be fine." He pressed just a little closer. "Show Cobb how it's done." And before he could open his mouth any more to say anything even more ill-advised, Eames ducked away, wondering whether Arthur would hate him even more for that potential distraction.

x X x

No matter what he did, from a long shower to drinking warm milk or herbal tea or pruning his spearmint and rosemary plants or even watching Alton Brown, Arthur could not get himself to a place that made sleep possible, come Sunday night.

He lay in bed, tossing and turning and thoroughly failing to find a comfortable position. Even worse was the prospect of getting his mind to shut off and leave him alone. Without fail, every time he closed his eyes, he would either hear Cobb's voice in his head, demanding an answer he couldn't give, or ordering him to chop faster, cut more evenly, and stir more vigorously, or he would see Eames behind his eyelids. Sometimes he saw the stony expression on his face when he'd walked away from Arthur near the parking garage on Friday, and that made him feel awful, because he knew within ten seconds that he'd made the wrong choice somehow. More often than not, however, he'd see the soft grin on Eames's face when they spotted each other between classes, or the gentle smile after he'd leaned in to kiss Arthur, or even the lust-hazed expression on his face when Arthur had pulled him in and sighed into his mouth for the first time, sharing himself in a way even he hadn't seen coming. And _that_ , more than anything else, hurt.

Breaking things off – or backing away, because Arthur had said both, but he wasn't really sure which they were going with – had been a stupid decision, because all it guaranteed was that he was thinking about Eames even more than before, only this time with the added distraction of pain and regret. It had only been a week, but Arthur missed the way his eyes crinkled when he smiled, or the way he'd smirk so naturally in response to everything. He missed the effortless, automatic way Eames would simply initiate physical contact, his hand coming up to lightly caress Arthur's back or arm, the way his fingers would trail over the back of Arthur's hand, or even the way they would slip inside his and give them a light squeeze, and the way Eames would grin when just that simple of an act would make him smile.

He'd really fucked this up.

He dragged himself into Cobb's class with effort after a grand total of ninety minutes of broken sleep, feeling beaten already. He had a dull headache, and he felt shaky – from the lack of sleep; the lack of dinner or breakfast; nerves and a general feeling of fear of incompetency; or some combination of all of those things. And to top it off, he was going to have to deal with Eames, who would not only be in the classroom, probably wishing Arthur would fail, so he would get what he deserved, but who would also be performing perfectly, with absolutely no effort. It was almost more than he could deal with.

As Cobb was giving them their final directions, Arthur glanced up to see Eames looking at him, considering him, an unreadable expression on his face. The expression made him feel worse, actually, because it might have been barely-concealed contempt, and in all the time they'd known each other, he'd never gotten a look like that.

"You have thirty minutes to get started," Cobb said with a wave of his hand, dismissing them all. Arthur felt something like panic slam into him, and though he'd felt pressure in the kitchen before, this was entirely new, this level of anxiety and certainty that he was about to undo every positive impression Cobb had ever had of him, was going to bomb the practical, and was going to flunk out of culinary school and have to go back to the career he hated.

Someone bumped into him near the racks of hotel pans and plastic containers, and that only made Arthur feel more out of place, something he'd never felt in a kitchen before; he wondered whether this was some form of mild anxiety attack, and if he could plead his case in front of the dean after the exam results posted.

"Hey," a voice said softly in his ear as the crowd of other students swarmed the equipment wall, pressing everyone close, and Arthur shivered slightly. He knew that accent, the richness of that voice. "You've got this. I know you do. You'll be fine." Eames pressed into him a little more, reaching up over their heads to grab a container. "Show Cobb how it's done." And before Arthur could say anything in response, he wandered off, leaving Arthur to work out exactly what had happened.

Arthur took a deep breath and grabbed the container he needed, heading for an empty spot at one of the tables. He hadn't expected Eames to say anything, especially after the first look he'd given him, but the fact that he _had_ , and had whispered words of encouragement, sort of jolted Arthur out of his swamp of panic. "Okay," he murmured to himself, setting up his station. "He wouldn't have said that if he _hated_ me." Somehow, just knowing that, and knowing that Eames thought he could handle things, that he actually _believed_ in him, made Arthur feel a hundred times better.

Eames was right. He could do this. He knew what the fuck he was doing, he'd studied his ass off, and he _had_ the skills and technique necessary to pass the practical. No matter what Cobb asked him to do – make a perfect hollandaise or beurre blanc, break down a chicken, make a potato soup that didn't taste or feel starchy, or fry or even have to flip something like _les pommes darphin_ in a pan, something he'd yet to completely master – Arthur could do it, and do it passably. He had four hours, and no one to rely upon or blame but himself.

He had this. He could prove that he _did_ belong here.

And immediately after this practical was over, he was going to find Eames, and he was going to _tell him he was sorry_ and that he'd make a mistake. Because it was perfectly clear he had, and it really hadn't taken more than a few seconds to realize that, though his stubborn sense of pride had not wanted to admit to it, because he was someone who stuck to his convictions.

Cobb hovered around Arthur's station for a few moments not much later, probably jotting notes on Arthur's station set-up and technique in breaking down a whole chicken, but Arthur was so focused that he put all that out of his mind. He'd found the zone, and not even the frustration of a non-cooperative Madeira sauce could yank him out of it. He'd built in enough time to give it another go, as long as he waited for the first stage of the sauce to reduce enough. He was even confident that should he have to slice and hold his chicken, risking dryness, the extra effort on the second version of the sauce would make it worthwhile.

By the end of the exam period, Arthur stood next to his plated dishes, waiting impatiently for Chef Cobb, assisted by Chef Cobol, to make their way to his station. He caught Ariadne's eye just as they left her station, and she looked a bit shaky, but pleased. He watched her take her plates over to the students who were doing dishes and clean-up duty and sneak back around to stand behind him. "My damned potatoes were a little underdone, but everything else was pretty good," she murmured. "Really high marks on my Beef Wellington. At the very least, I passed. Your stuff looks perfect, though." Cobb approached Arthur just then, and Ariadne pinched him lightly just above the elbow before stepping back. "Good luck.'

It was the most nerve-wracking four minutes Arthur'd ever spent in class: having Cobb and Cobol dissect his dishes, taste everything slowly, and then throw a dozen questions at him about his decisions and alternatives he might have considered, but other than a small ding for too-subtle flavor in his potato, leek, and bacon soup (a lot more leek next time, and maybe larger bits of bacon), Cobb's assessment was favorable, and even Cobol seemed impressed in a way she definitely hadn't been the night of the fundraiser. 

"Wow, even Cobol liked you," Ariadne said as Arthur gathered his messenger bag. "That's amazing. How do you feel about it?"

Arthur ran a hand through his hair. "Honestly, it hasn't sunk in yet. Listen, I have something I have to do. Have you seen Eames?"

Ariadne raised her eyebrows. "He was one of the first people evaluated. He's been gone for...I dunno... twenty minutes? Why?"

"I just need to tell him something I realized."

"And gloat a bit?"

"No. Wait, gloat?"

"Yeah. You had to have done at least as well as he did, if not better. He had something go wrong with his protein, I think. Or at least not as well as he wanted. He didn't really say."

"Do you know where he went?"

Stuffing her chef's hat into her bag, Ariadne shook her head. "Nope. This was the only class any of us had today, and I'm pretty sure he's skipping the optional review session for Mediterranean Cuisine in an hour, so he probably just headed home."

Shit. "All right. Thanks, Ariadne. Sorry to run, but I'll call you later, okay? Maybe see about going out for coffee before the practical in Cakes and Confections?"

"Yeah, sure. I'm going to go inhale some food before the review session. Call me after eight, but before midnight, okay?"

"Sure," Arthur said, already walking away, wondering where in the hell he could find Eames. He wasn't in the cafeteria, or the parking garage, or any other place Arthur could think to look. Arthur pulled his phone out of his pocket. Almost five. He pulled up his contacts and stared at Eames's number for several moments. He needed to talk to him, but the possibility that Eames didn't want to hear whatever he had to say kept him from dialing. Besides, Arthur didn't want to leave something so important for a phone call, which was too impersonal and hid the subtleties of body language and facial expression.

Arthur turned back towards the parking garage with a sigh. As long as he was home and the security code hadn't been changed in the last week and a half, Eames was just going to have to slam the door in his face if he really didn't want to hear Arthur's apology.

His luck, added by the bit of confidence Eames had managed to restore to him, held. He drove up the driveway of Eames's friend's place and parked, glad to see Eames' car also parked. Taking a moment to gather himself, Arthur took a few deep breaths and rang the bell, hoping that if Eames did have one of those closed-circuit television systems, he either didn't use it, or was curious enough to open up anyway.

"Arthur?" Eames stood in the doorway, a white half-apron tied around his waist. Arthur could see one single light green stripe across one thigh, almost as if Eames had wiped a knife there after slicing through something like bell pepper or spinach. "What the hell are you doing here? I thought you'd decided we were done. Or did you just come for something you might have left last weekend?"

"I need to talk to you about something."

Eames looked at him and shrugged, crossing his arms and leaning one shoulder against the door frame. "All right. Talk. I'll listen. You took the trouble to drive all the way over here, so it must be important."

"I've been an ass," he said simply. The direct route was usually the best, wasn't it?

Eames looked startled for a moment, and the hint of a smile flashed across his face before disappearing again. "Well, you won't exactly get an argument from me on that one. Sometimes, it's a part of your charm, but you've sort of gone above and beyond."

"Yeah, I know. Look, Eames. I'm aware I was a complete dick on Friday. I just...I'd told myself I was in school to learn, and I wasn't going to let anything interfere with showing everyone just how good I could be. But I did. I let myself get caught up in what we...what we _were_ , because it was new and it was unexpected, and it was really, really good." God, it had been good, even aside from the lusty make-out sessions. "I just wanted you to know I was sorry. Even if you don't want to give me another shot, do you think we could please put this behind us?" Eames didn't say anything, and just stood there looking mildly surprised. "Please?" God, he hated to beg, and this was close enough, but fuck, he _had_ been a dick to Eames, who had never done anything worse than tease him.

"You're sorry?" Eames asked after another moment of silence, and there was something in his voice that made Arthur look up, aware that he might _not_ have fucked up so badly that they couldn't even be friends, after all. " _How_ sorry?" The corner of his mouth quirked up just a little and Arthur groaned internally, because he knew that Eames knew he hated this sort of thing. But fuck, he deserved it, and if a little humility was all it took to make Eames willing to speak to him, maybe even spend time together talking music or movies or exchanging fucking recipes like a couple of old women, then fine, Arthur would suffer through it.

" _Really_ sorry. I don't know what you want me to say. I've felt like shit about this since the minute you walked away on Friday. I was worked up, I lashed out, and I made a stupid decision. Fuck it, I'll just say it: I miss you, and I hate knowing I fucked up what could have been a good relationship, or, at the very least, a really good friendship."

Eames stood up straight and moved closer. "Do you, really?" he whispered, and there was so much in that question that it made Arthur shiver. "You wouldn't give up on this a second time, if I was interested in forgetting this whole thing?"

"Not a chance in hell," Arthur whispered, his chest tightly, achingly hopeful.

Eames looked at him a very long time, and then he was moving forwards, his hand cupping the back of Arthur's neck as he tugged him up to stand in the doorway, and then his mouth was on Arthur's, hot and sweet and firm. He pulled away after several moments, smirking at Arthur. "Well, then. Get your arse inside and help me make dinner."

Arthur grinned, feeling twice as good as he had after getting his evaluation this afternoon. "That, I think I can do."

Chuckling, Eames pulled Arthur inside. "Excellent. And if you're good later, we can see about dessert."


End file.
